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assell’s “RAINBOW” Series of Original Novels. 


PRICE 25 CENTS. 

Old 

Fulkerson ’s 
Clerk 


CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, 

739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 







4 ) 


The baron’s blade is dimmed with rust, 
With rust his armor cakes, 

His plate and cup aside are thrust, 

His crest in anger shakes. 

‘‘Now who will clean,” he cries in wrath, 
“ This sword, these arms of mine ? 

What potent sage the secret hath. 

Once more to make them shine ? ” 

Then forth a traveled vassal stepped. 

Who knew of foreign lands. 

Quoth he : “A mixture deftly yclept, 
AAvaits my lord’s commands. 

“ It polisheth whate’er it meets. 

As those who use it know ; 

Fame sings its praise and fortune greets 
The great ‘ Sapolio.’ * ” 

A cake forthwith he brought to view. 
Which then and there was tried, 

“ In sooth the metal shines anew,” . 

The mighty baron cried. 

“ That vassal wise shall knighted be. 
Who brought this prince of charms, 

Sapolio henceforth shall he 
Wear for his coat of arms.” 




* What is Sapolio ? It is a solid, handsome cake of scouring soap, which has no 
equal for all cleaning purposes except the laundry. To use it is to value it. 

What will Sapolio do ? Why, it will clean paint, make oilcloths bright, and give 
the floors, tables and shelves a new appearance. 

It will take the grease off the dishes and off the pots and pans. You can scour 
the knives and forks with it, and make the tin things shine brightly. 

The wash-basin, the bath-tub, even the greasy kitchen sink, will be as clean as a 
new pin if you use Sapolio. One cake will prove all we say. Be a clever little house- 
keeper and try it. 

Beware or imitations. There is but one Sapolio. 


(^nock Morgan’s J’ons do. 


Mew Sfork. 


OLD FULKERSON’S CLERK 


CASSELL’S RAINBOW SERIES 


A CRIMSON STAIN, 

By Annie Bradshaw. 


MORGAN’S HORROR, 

By George Manville Fenn. 


OLD FULKERSON’S CLERK, 

By Mrs. J. H. Walworth. 


NATASQUA, 

By Rebecca Harding Davis. 


KING SOLOMON’S MINES. 

By H. Rider Haggard. 


OUR SENSATION NOVEL, 

Edited by Justin Huntly McCarthy, M. P. 


OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. 



OLD FULKERSON’S 
CLERK 



MRS. J. H. WALWORTH, 

AUTHOR OF “BAR SINISTER,” “WITHOUT BLEMISH,” 
ETC., ETC. 



r 



CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

739 & 741 Broadway, New York. 




Copyright, 

1886, 

By O. M. DUNHAM. 


All Rights Reserved. 


Press of W. L. Mershon & Co. 
Rahway, N. J. 


•o 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

A Venturesome Step, 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Alice Inquires of R. Crocker, . . . , i6 

CHAPTER III. 

Pro and Con, ....... 28 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mrs. Fulkerson Writes a Letter, ... 35 

CHAPTER V. 

At the Mercy of a Dog, ... - 41 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mrs. Fulkerson’s Letter is Answered, . . 49 

CHAPTER VII. 


Dr. Crocker makes a Discovery, 


59 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE. 

Ralph Undergoes Gradations of Feeling, . 67 

CHAPTER IX. 

Georgina’s Points, 71 

CHAPTER X. 

Mopsy Finds a Friend, 77 

CHAPTER XI. 

An Old Man’s Confession, 84 

CHAPTER XII. 

Fresh Suspicions, 93 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Dr. Crocker Becomes an Accomplice, . . 100 

CHAPTER XIV. 

David Duncan Repents Him of a Good Deed, 108 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Talisman, 113 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Put to the Test, 124 

CHAPTER XVII. 


A Rash Promise, . 


. 130 


CONTENTS. 


V 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


PAGE. 

Rash Endeavor, . 137 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A Fierce Awakening, 144 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Bitter End, 15 1 

CHAPTER XXL 

Foiled, 158 

CHAPTER XXII. 

And the Days go Gliding by, . . . . 164 

CHAPTER XXIH. 

Conclusion, 167 


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OLD FULKERSON^S CLERK. 


CHAPTER 1. 

A VENTURESOME STEP. 

“ Wanted — experienced sick nurse to wait on 
a gentleman, at fifteen dollars per week. Must 
be able to read and write some. A widow lady, 
who is strong and healthy, and has no family, pre- 
ferred. To such a one this is a good place. In- 
quire of R. Crocker, No. — Park Avenue, New York 
City.” 

“ I’ll do it, too ! Read that, Mopsy ! ” 

The speaker rose excitedly from the window-seat 
where she had been curled up to get the full 
benefit of the fast fading daylight on the “want ” 
column of the New York Herald, and crossing the 
little room impetuously, laid the paper down upon 
the type-writer whose monotonous but rapid click- 
clack had finally ceased for want of light, while its 
operator leaned unrestfully back in her hard wooden 
chair. 

“ Wait ! ” 

The speaker struck a match and lighted the gas 
in the unshaded jet. Then they both winked and 
blinked in the sudden transition from darkness to 
light. Not that the illumination was especially 
dazzling. The burner on the jet was of a very small 
capacity, and but a feeble radiance was shed on the 
small splotchy looking-glass which swung stiffly in 


g 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


its blue painted frame, and was given to unflattering 
reflections on its surroundings. 

The tired type-writer leaned forward to read the 
advertisement that had been rather tempestuously 
presented for her consideration. The presenter of 
it stationed herself in front of the splotchy looking- 
glass, dropped her clasped hands in front of her, 
and took a long and deliberate survey of her own 
form and face. The critical survey terminated in a 
long fluttering sigh. Her voice was a trifle less 
defiant when she spoke again. 

“ I wonder if I dare do it ?" 

You are so abominably handsome, Alice ! " says 
Mopsy, one hand still on the advertisement in the 
Heraldy but both eyes scanning the tall, lithe form, 
with its sloping shoulders and its white neck, and its 
proud-looking head, with its covering of soft, wavy 
hair, and, just then, its classic two-thirds profile with 
its large eyes turned in eager questioning toward 
her. 

“ This glass says differently. It always puts me 
into a humble and contrite mood.’ 

Alice walked reflectively over to her sister, and 
leaning over her shoulder read the advertisement a 
third time. 

“You know, Mopsy, I am a splendid nurse, and 
oh ! how far that fifteen dollars would go toward 
making us comfortable ! Why, it would be positive 
affluence to us.” 

“ Must be able to read and write some,” Mopsy 
answers with abstracted irrelevance. She is 
tracing the advertisement with a long, thin fore- 
finger, a finger that has a pitiably bloodless look. 
“ If he knew of your literary aspirations he might 
think you could read and write too much.” She 
laughed a trifle bitterly. 

“ I am certainly strong and healthy,” says Alice, 
eagerly skipping to the points she could consden^ 
tiously make. 


A Venturesome Step. 


9 


How about this? " 

The other girl slowly underscored with her blood- 
less finger the words: “A widow lady,” — then 
leaned back in her chair and looked steadily up 
into the handsome face so close to her own. There 
was an angry spot on each smooth cheek now. 

“ Must he know all the ins and outs of a woman’s 
life in order to decide whether she can shake up his 
pillows properly, or drop his medicine accurately, or 
read him to sleep satisfactorily? Of course he is old 
and rich and cranky. Tm prepared for any amount 
of unreasonableness on his part.” 

The finger never left the words, “A widow lady.” 

“Don’t! You are cruel, Mopsy 1 ” The elder 
woman walked away flushed and angered. 

“ Then you are so ridiculously young, Alice. I am 
afraid he would refuse you for fear you might get to 
flirting with his doctors, or playing havoc with his 
sons, if he has any. And then your form!” Still 
objecting — “You are altogether too slim and trim to 
pass for a professional nurse.” 

“ Oh, Mopsy ! Don’t do every thing you can to 
discourage me ! I can fix myself up to look a veri- 
table middle-aged scare-crow. You know I can. I 
always took the old woman parts in our charades 
and tableaux at home: Oh, dear, how things have 
changed since those merry days ! ” 

“ Oh, oh ! Remember the contract.” Mopsy 
held up a rebuking finger. 

“ I do remember it. We were to put our shoul- 
ders to the wheel, and never look back.” 

“ Hand to the plow, dear ! You are a little mixed 
in your metaphors.” 

“But, Mopsy! ” unheeding the interruption, “if 
we are never to take any risks, we shall remain for- 
ever just what we are now. Two homeless, penniless, 
aimlessly struggling women trying to earn our 
livelihood without the remotest idea how. to go 
about it.” 


10 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


“ I am sure,” says Mopsy, “ weVe done it, after a 
fashion, fora whole year now.” 

‘‘You may well say after a fashion ! You stand- 
ing on your poor, dear feet all day directing wrap- 
pers and rolling up papers! I trimming bonnets for 
other people’s heads. If we had been brought up 
to that sort of thing, now” — 

“ We might do it better,” Mopsy calmly interpo- 
lated, combating, as usual, Alice’s tendency to draw 
comparisons between now and then. 

Alice’s face was full of intense disgust, as with 
hands folded tightly behind her, she paced the little 
room to and fro. 

“ Moreover, you have purposely and ungratefully 
ignored our supplementary and artistic efforts at 
home. At least, I am supplementary, and you are 
artistic. I am quite sure the spray of golden-rod 
you painted on that mirror was simply perfect. I 
am sure the Woman’s Exchange has put nothing 
prettier on exhibition since it has been an exchange. 
Moreover, you are to be a great literary lady some 
of these days. And I am getting so expert with 
my type-writer, that I expect to command first-class 
wages this fall.” 

Alice stopped suddenly in her aimless tramp, and 
imprinted an impetuous kiss on her sister’s blue- 
veined temple. 

“You stand it so much betterthan I, and yet it is 
all through me that you have any thing to stand.” 

“ Hush ! On forbidden ground again ! I wish 
you could get this place. That is, if there is noth- 
ing wrong in the deceit you would have to prac- 
tice.” 

“ There is no deceit about it. If I choose to dress 
like an old woman instead of a young one, whose 
business is that? ” 

“ What name would you give?” 

Quite a long silence intervened between question 
and answer. 


A Venturesome Step. 1 1 

“ Mistress Alice ! That would be name enough 
for a nurse/’ 

“ It sounds Englishy ! I suppose that would rec- 
ommend it in New York. What apes these mor- 
tals be ! ” 

“ Apparently there never was a place where peo- 
ple had less curiosity about one’s private life.” 

“ I think that is as much from lack of interest as 
any thing else. If you were only a little plainer,” 
says Mopsy, discontentedly. 

Alice laughed. What woman could ever be made 
to feel dissatisfied with herself for being too good- 
looking. Suddenly she turned toward the closet 
where her hat and shawl were hanging, seized them 
with the impetuous haste that characterized all her 
movements when under the influence of some 
excitement, and while she tied the crumpled brown 
strings under her chin, said :: — 

“ I’ll be gone for about half an hour, Mopsy. 
Don’t use your eyes over that type-writer any more 
just now. The lids are red and swollen dear. Lie 
down and rest until I come back.” 

She was gone, and Mopsy so far obeyed her as to 
push her chair back from the type-writer and place 
the black lid over it. Then she went and stood 
where she could look down upon the homeward 
hurrying crowd jostling elbows on the Tenth Street 
pavement. 

“ Poor Allie ! What a tremendous stock of vitality 
she has left, and after all she has gone through, 
too ! ” 

There was a caressing pity in the girl’s voice, as 
she said these words, sighed and lapsed into silence. 
The room was in almost total darkness. Gas was 
among the extras in Mrs. Grimm’s boarding-house, 
and consequently, was used with the most rigid 
economy in this particular apartment of that genteel 
establishment. Perhaps somewhere, out in the glad, 
open country^ daylight might still be lingering; but 


12 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


up there, where the high four and five stories of 
brick and mortar crowded thick about one another, 
the sun’s course was sooner run ; darkness came 
quickly and departed tardily. 

It was a gloomy August evening. Rain had been 
falling all day. It was even now dropping from the 
eaves with a slow, sullen patter on the broad stone 
window-sill near which Mopsy had taken her stand. 
Still half an hour must elapse before the harsh bell 
down stairs would summon her to the basement 
dining-room, where with much clatter of knife and 
fork, and but slight conversational interruption, all 
of Mrs. Grimm’s boarders would apply themselves 
with more or less gusto to the task of consuming the 
rations of corned-beef, string-beans, pickled beets, 
and mashed potatoes, with which they were all so 
drearily familiar. The pastime of gazing out on wet 
and slippery pavements and processions of water- 
proofed people is soon exhausted. 

Mopsy threw herself upon the dingy carpet-cov- 
ered recliner, that was planted rigidly against the 
wall to conceal its deficiency in the matter of legs. 
She was very tired, but her eyes did not close rest- 
fully. Instead, they fixed themselves unwinkingly 
upon a shimmering spot of light reflected from an 
opposite window on the panels of the door through 
which her sister had disappeared. 

“ Who would ever have thought that we could 
come to this! And through no fault of our own ! 
Oh ! But it is hard ! ” 

Now that she was alone, Mopsy indulged herself 
in that retrospection which she and Alice had sternly 
prohibited to themselves, as only tending to weaken 
resolution and make the inevitable still harder to bear. 

“ And after all is said and done, what helpless creat- 
ures women are in men’s hands. It is not likely 
now that I shall ever be tempted into the folly of 
giving any man sway over my destiny, for penniless 
girls are not at a premium ; but if I should 


A Venturesome Step. 13 

A gentle rap on the outside of the door where the 
gaslight was shimmering ! 

“ Come in ! 

Mopsy’s answer came with surprised alacrity. 
Visitors were such an unheard of thing to the sisters 
Gregory. It was neither pay-day nor laundress-day. 
Those two exhausted their social possibilities. She 
hastened toward the gas jet with a match in her 
hand. The knock was repeated ! So was Mopsy’s 
“ Come in,” and when the door opened and revealed 
the gray-clad figure of an elderly woman, the room was 
brightened by the full extent of all the gas procurable. 

“ Excuse — me — my — dear — your — steps are steep 
— and — they — have — quite taken my breath away,” 
the gray visitor slowly panted out. 

“Well, then, madam, you must rest before trying 
to tell your errand. I take it for granted,” she added, 
placing their one easy-chair at the old lady’s dis- 
posal, “ that you have an errand ; for we have noth- 
ing but business acquaintances in New York — now 
at least.” 

“Yes, I have business,” — the slow, sweet voice 
was more at her command now, — “ I believe I would 
thank you for a glass of water, my dear, my tongue 
seems thick and dry. Then I must tell you what 
brought me here, and be getting off, for I’ve no par- 
ticular fancy for being out alone late, if lam old and 
ugly.” 

Old and ugly she was undeniably, with her gray 
hair arranged in a frizz that peeped out from a black 
net cap, made hideous with dark purple ribbons ; 
with smoked glass spectacles, through which her 
eyes gleamed feverish and greenish ; with long, black 
mittens that left only the last joint of each finger 
visible ; with a coarse gray serge, guiltless of any 
ornamentation, save four wooden tucks above the 
hem, the body made and cut in the graceless dress- 
reform style, which left the presence of the corsets 
altogether conjectural. 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


14 


‘‘Your name is Gregory, I believe?” she said, 
handing the empty glass back with thanks. 

“Yes.” 

“ And you have a sister named Alice ? ” 

“ That is true, also.” 

“ Is she younger or older than yourself? ” 

“She is older by some five years.” 

“ Folks speak well of you both, my dear. I came 
to see if I could get one of you to help me with a job 
I have in hand. You look rather young. I should 
like to see your sister.” 

“ I am very sorry,” says Mopsy, inwardly noting 
this exemplification of her pet aphorism, that 
“ Providence helps those who help themselves,” 
“ but my sister is out, just now. If you could 
wait ” — 

“ I can wait a little while, dear, just a little while. 
I don’t like to be out too late alone, if I am old and 
ugly.” 

“ I am sure she will not be long now.” Mopsy 
was inwardly chafing at Alice’s delay. Who knew 
what golden chance might slip away from them if 
she let this little old gray lady go without explaining 
her errand! 

“ Is it you or she that owns the little brown-stone 
house out on Seventy-sixth Street ? ” 

Mopsy was surprised at this intimate knowledge of 
her private affairs — not only surprised, but an- 
noyed. 

“ I own it, madam, but it is leased out for four 
years ; so if that is your business ” — 

“ Is it you or she that married a man ” — 

“ Madam ! ” says Mopsy in a quick, imperious 
voice, “ I decline answering irrelevant, and permit 
me to add, impertinent questions.” 

“ Hoity-toity I Is it you or she that’s got the 
temper of the family ? ” 

Mopsy was motioning to the door with regal 
indignation. 


A Venturesome Step, 15 

The old lady rose slowly and stiffly from the low 
chair. 

As she walked feebly toward the door, Mopsy 
relented : “ Who shall I tell my sister Alice came 

to see her?” Her eyes suddenly dilated in 
amazement. 

“ Say that Mistress Alice called ! ” said a quick, 
familiar voice, as with both hands Alice disposed of 
cap, gray front and smoked spectacles. 

“ That settles the ‘ too youthful ’ objection,” she 
said, when she could say any thing for laughing at 
Mopsy’s blank amazement. 

“ But your form ? You look so outrageously old 
in the back ! ” 

“ I know I do,” says Alice, craning her long neck 
to get a rear view of herself in the splotchy little 
glass. “ Thanks to dress reform, I haven’t the least 
particle of shape left. You see,” giving her pretty 
shoulders a vigorous shake, “ every thing hangs loose 
and straight and gracelessly from the shoulders. 
So,” she added, settling herself comfortably in the 
chair the old lady had vacated, “ it is settled, and I 
will apply at Park Avenue to-morrow before shop 
hours.” 

“Alice,” said the younger girl, laying both hands 
on her sister’s shoulders, “ forgive me, dear, for 
raising one more objection. Suppose — what if 
Dennis should come back ? ” 

“ Dennis come back ! Why should he ? How 
dare he? How could he? Oh, Mopsy! Have I 
not suffered enough in the past, without walking 
through life chained to a specter of what might 
happen ? ” 

She shook her sister’s hands off, and walking 
toward the window, stood staring out on the wet 
walls and steamy windows and flitting shadows on 
the house opposite her. Mopsy followed her and 
said with grave insistance : — 

“ But what if he should, Alice ? It is best always 


i6 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


to face the worst possibility, and be prepared before- 
hand. What if he should ? ” 

“ There is not a shadow of a possibility of his 
coming here ! He dare not do it.*' 

‘‘ But if he should dare, Alice ? ” 

“ Then,” said Alice, facing toward her with 
cheeks aflame, “ I should leave him to his fate. He 
might go his way, and I mine! He made wreck of 
my past ! — He shall not crush out every possibility 
of my future ! ” 

She clasped her hands behind her, in the attitude 
so pathetically familiar to the sister who followed 
her movements with loving anxiety and infinite pity 
in her face. The uproar in the street lulled for a 
brief second. The sullen pattering of the rain on 
the stone sill was plainly audible! Presently 
Mopsy’s voice broke the long silence : — 

“ Until death do — ” 

Alice answered with a sob. 


CHAPTER 11. 

ALICE INQUIRES OF R. CROCKER. 

Alice was in advance of the early post next morn- 
ing in reaching No. — Park Avenue. In fact she had 
arrived in that aristocratic region so very early that 
she nervously made the circuit of the entire block 
twice before venturing to ring. The third time she 
found herself facing the big, polished double-doors, 
bearing on one plate the number, and on the other a 
name, which, from the street certainly did not look 
like “ Crocker.” She boldly mounted the stone 
steps to the high stoop, and put all the courage she 
had left into one vigorous pull of the bell. She was 
just plucking off the veil that kept her eyes and 
nose in durance vile, so she might read the indistinct 
lettering on the time-worn door-plate, when the 


Alice Inquires of R. Crocker. 17 

door was suddenly opened by a man-servant belong- 
ing to that grade of respectability before which 
humble merit stands abashed and genteel poverty 
bows its head. 

“ Whom did you wish to see, mum ? ” he asked, 
taking in every detail of the gray-clad figure on the 
stoop with swift inspection. 

“ I came in answer to this,” Mistress Alice an- 
swered, taking from the small leather satchel on her 
arm the advertisement clipped from yesterday’s 
Herald and exteriding it with somewhat tremu- 
lous fingers to the magnificent butler in the door- 
way. 

“ Oh ! h’m ! Well, I guess you’ll stand about as 
good a chance as the forty that’s beat you here. 
This way, if you please, mum.” 

Alice’s heart sank within her. What chance had 
she with forty applicants ahead of her ! She fol- 
lowed meekly in the wake of the magnificent but- 
ler, catching occasional glimpses in huge mirrors of 
a tall unfamiliar form robed in coarse gray serge, 
with a slight hump on its shoulders, and a gray 
fringe of hair framing its forehead, and a pair of 
smoked glasses glittering in the subdued light, 
through a hall where the foot-fall was smothered in 
soft, thick carpeting, where fluffy rugs of gorgeous 
hues doubly protected the thresholds of the tall, 
dark doors, with bright silver knobs — back to the 
rear of the house, where, suddenly flinging back a 
heavy maroon- velvet portiere, the butler introduced 
her laconically to the back of a gentleman’s head, 
sitting in there at an open desk with only his head 
visible above the stamped leather back of his chair. 

“Here’s another one of ’em, doctor! ” 

Then the brass rings of the portiere gave out a 
musical twinkle as the butler dropped it and left 
Alice alone with the man at the desk. 

“ Ah ! be seated, please, I will attend to you in a 
moment.” 


1 8 Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 

He gave one glance at her over his shoulder 
without altering his position, and resumed his occu- 
pation of rolling out pill-paste. Alice was thankful 
for the short respite his preoccupation gave her. 
Her cheeks tingled ! This was the first time in a 
long while that she had come in contact with a man 
in her own sphere of life and received but the 
recognition due a dependent. After all, then, she 
thought bitterly, one is just what one’s circumstances 
and surroundings make one. 

It was a bright alcove room she found herself in. 
Through the end window she caught glimpses of 
bright beds of colors outlined with “Dusty Miller” 
and flashing parterres of fresh geranium. All the 
appointments of this room were in keeping with the 
pile of the carpets, the silky mats and the magnifi- 
cent butler. The man at the desk there, who seemed 
to have forgotten her very existence, must be 
majestically tall for his whole head to show over the 
high back of the gilt leather chair. The chair was 
one of a set that helped furnish the room. She was 
in one herself, and hat and all just came to the top ! 
His hair was very black, and he had abundance of 
it ! One thing to be taken note of in these bald- 
headed times ! The style of his collar and the 
glimpse of his snowy cuffs suggested neatness. 
Alice adored neatness in a man. She was just carry- 
ing her speculations into the neighborhood of his 
eyes and nose, when he rose with slow deliberation 
and faced toward her. “ I beg pardon for keeping 
you waiting so long, madam, but it was unavoidable. 
I suppose you came in answer to my advertise- 
ment ? ” 

“ Is your name Crocker ? ” 

It was a stupidly irrelevant answer, and Alice 
clasped her black-mittened hands nervously about 
the handle of her satchel. She had supposed “ R. 
Crocker ” to be the cranky old invalid she wanted to 
nurse for a consideration, and here was R. Crocker, 


Alice Inquires of R, Crocker. 


19 


the embodiment of physical strength ! A stalwart, 
handsome man, with ruddy cheeks and clear large 
eyes, and strong white hands, and not a sign of any 
lack visible. 

“ I hope you are not nervous,” he said, noting the 
violent twitching of the hands on the satchel. 

“Not in the least, sir,” said Alice, frightened at 
her own folly in jeopardizing her chances. “ Only a 
little taken by surprise. I had supposed R. Crocker 
was the invalid ; so you see ” — a slight smile wavered 
about her closed lips. 

One of Mopsy’slast injunctions had been, “Don’t 
you show your teeth ! They will betray you. Such 
perfect milk-white rows are not found in an old 
woman’s mouth.” 

“Yes, I see how the mistake could occur. The 
invalid is an uncle of mine. He is partially paral- 
yzed, has no use of his lower limbs and his right 
arm, only the partial use of his left hand. He has 
led a very active life, and this confinement is very 
trying to his temper. He has his man-servant, 
who is always in attendance upon him for the more 
menial services. But what I am trying to find is 
some one with sufficient tact to grasp the idea of 
what this misfortune must entail on him, and treat 
him accordingly. I should like to know your quali- 
fications for this position before going any fur- 
ther.” 

“ I am strong and healthy. Have no family to 
interfere with my duties. Can read and write some ” 
— the subtle sarcasm in the emphasis she placed on 
the last word smote upon a very acute ear — “ and am 
a very good nurse.” 

“ I have had many answers to that advertisement ; 
but after a full understanding of what is expected of 
them, only five have persisted in wanting the place. 
I have promised to decide between them by twelve 
o’clock to-day.” 

“ I should like to hear the particulars, please.” 


20 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


Undeniably my uncle is extremely captious, sus- 
picious, and unreasonable. What he most needs is 
a cheerful attendant, one,’' he added smiling, “ not 
entirely devoid of a will of her own. Your duties 
would be to read or write or talk, as his whim may 
demand. To be in constant attendance on him dur- 
ing the day, and to endure any amount of ill-natured 
exaction.” 

“ So much for the disadvantages ; the advantages, 
please.” 

Dr. Crocker smiled at the cool command in her 
tones. 

“ The advantages,” he said, “lie in your having a 
comfortable room and a private table, served as the 
family table is served. In your being paid fifteen 
dollars a week, and at no expense. And I will add 
for your comfort, that while my uncle’s friendship 
and confidence are extremely hard to gain, they are 
worth a great deal when once secured.” 

“ I persist in desiring the place. I do not under- 
rate its drawbacks ; but I can not afford to be fas- 
tidious.” 

The docter sat absently twirling the end of his 
long mustache. 

There was something a trifle puzzling in this new 
applicant. Not in her looks, for she was none too 
fine nor too good-looking to have walked the wards 
of a hospital all her life. He believed it was in the 
voice. There was an undercurrent of imperiousness 
in its soft, sweet tones that certainly did not smack 
of one used to obeying. He would like to analyze 
that voice. 

“ Would you mind reading for me ? ” he asked sud- 
denly. 

“ Certainly not ! What shall it be ? ” she asked, 
with growing confidence in herself and in her 
chances. 

“ The morning paper, of course. There is nothing 
more irritating to unstrung nerves than an unpleas- 


Alice Inquires of R. Crocker. 21 

ant reader;” he handed her the paper with the 
words. 

“ May I ask what line of business your uncle pur- 
sued before his affliction?” 

“ The man, in fact, still is a large ship owner.” 

“ Then, of course, port-news would interest him 
most.” 

So she turned to the shipping news, and gave its 
dry details in a clear, precise, understandable fash- 
ion. As Dr. Crocker had already read the entire 
column that morning to his uncle, he was scarcely 
blameable for giving his attention to the reader 
instead. 

The cheeks are full and young, but the mouth 
looks thin and elderly! The gray hair and smoked 
glasses, and the humped back stamp the unattract- 
ive, staid woman. The ears — 

A sudden lull brought back his wandering atten- 
tion. Alice laid the paper down and said, “ Well ?” 

“ Good I I see you can read — some ! And now,” 
waving her toward the desk, “ if you will be so good 
as to put your application in writing. Your posi- 
tion will be that of an amanuensis, also.” 

Alice was fearless on this score. She was quite 
conscious that her handwriting would bear the closest 
scrutiny. She wrote the application in a few words, 
boldly signed it Alice Gregory, and submitted it for 
inspection. 

‘‘Alice Gregory! Widow, of course?” 

“Yes.” 

Alice gave the information in a low and shaken 
voice. Dr. Crocker feared that he had ruthlessly 
torn open a wound. 

“ Pardon me,” he said very gently. “ I am afraid 
I seem brutally inquisitive, but it is necessary that 
we should understand each other perfectly at the 
outset. What I have seen of you inclines me ” — 

“Ralph! Ralph, do come! He is in one of his 
towering tempers, and Tm afraid of him. He is 


22 


Old Ftilkersons Clerk. 


flinging things around as if he had a dozen hands 
instead of only half a one. Oh ! it is just too hor- 
rid.” 

This startling interruption came from the direc- 
tion of the portiere. A snowy hand and arm were 
outlined against the dark folds of the velvet. Rich 
diamonds flashed on the fingers that clutched the 
cloth. From the elevated arm a loose, lace-trimmed 
sleeve fell back. A pair of dark pleading eyes were 
fastened on Dr. Crocker’s quiet face. They were only 
one attraction in a very handsome face, whose beauty 
was marred just now by frowning anxiety. The red 
lips had the petulant pout of a spoiled child. 

“ Do come quickly, Ralph.” 

The gleam of a silver buckle on a dainty slipper 
flashed into notice as its wearer executed a little 
stamp of impatience. 

“ I am coming,” said the doctor. “ I warned you, 
Edith, that this would be one of his worst days. It 
is the dampness of the atmosphere.” 

“ I’m sure atmospheric husbands are extremely 
uncomfortable belongings. I’m not going to stir 
until you go with me. What has become of all 
those stupid women you spent yesterday talking to ? 
Wouldn’t a single one of them do?” 

Dr. Crocker was selecting some vials from a cabi- 
net over his desk. He did not seem to think this 
last outburst worthy of an answer. Alice’s voice 
broke the silence : 

“ Let me see the gentleman, will you not, sir? I 
have had some experience with — eccentric people.” 

For the first time she became an object of obser- 
vation to the lady at the portiere. 

“ Who are you ? ” she asked, not rudely, but 
coldly. 

“ I am one of those stupid women Dr. Crocker 
has under consideration.” 

“ Heavens! it is hard to imagine the straits that 
would drive a woman to want such a position.” 


Alice Inquires of R. Crocker, 


23 


“ Fifteen dollars a week does mean a great deal to 
me — more than you can imagine. May I go with 
you ? " — this to Dr. Crocker, who was moving toward 
the door with his hands full of vials. 

“ I believe I should like you to try the experi- 
ment. One half hour with him will make things 
clearer for you than any thing I can say. So, Mrs.” 
— he paused. 

“ Mistress Alice they called me where I was last,” 
she answered, easing her conscience with the reflec- 
tion that she was last with Mopsy in their own little 
room, where they had experimented on the 
sound. 

“ Come with us, then, Mistress Alice.” 

He took the lead, the two women following. The 
handsome woman said confidentially : 

“ My good creature, if you get this place you are 
so anxious for, I pity you. I am his wife, but Fd 
rather spend an hour in a lion’s den any time. 
Hush ! ” 

They were in the presence of the sick man. Alice 
caught the gleam of a pair of harsh gray eyes, saw 
the tall, gaunt form of the paralytic arrayed in a 
gay-flowered dressing-gown, heard a harsh, querulous 
voice complaining of the doctor’s long neglect, and 
uttering maledictions on the fate which bound him 
helpless to a cripple’s chair, while all the world was 
conspiring to swindle and betray him. 

Various misplaced articles strewed the rich car- 
pet, having answered temporarily the purpose of 
missiles flung by the unhappy man in the chair, 
with all the strength left in his stricken left hand, as 
violent punctuation points to his violent denuncia- 
tion of humanity in general. 

Alice, quietly stooping, picked up a newspaper, 
a paper-cutter, a memorandum book, a penknife, 
and a bunch of keys. She laid them on the small 
table at the sick man’s elbow. 

“ Who the devil are you ? ” the paralytic asked 


24 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


suddenly, frowningly surveying the gray-clad figure 
from head to foot. 

“ At present I’m nobody much, sir ; but I hope 
to increase in importance when I become your 
nurse.” 

There was such an entire absence of that servile 
coaxing and abject agitation that had characterized 
the average nurse under the intimidating effect of 
the old man’s savageness, that Dr. Crocker, who was 
dropping a liquid drug with slow precision, looked 
at her with a grave smile, as he said to himself, “ She 
will do.” 

“ What is your name, ma’am ? ” asked the aston- 
ished invalid, staring at the nimble fingers that were 
smoothing out the paper he had crumpled in his fury. 

“ Mistress Alice, sir, is what I am called. By the 
way, what ’s yours, sir ?” 

“ What is that to you, so you get your wages ? ” 

“ A great deal. I’m fond of addressing people by 
their names.” 

“ Can you write ? ” 

“ Some,” — very demurely. 

“ And read ? ” 

“ Some.” 

“ Given to flirting?” 

“ Flirting ! bless me, whom should I flirt with ? ” 
“ Ralph there ! He’s a handsome dog ! ” 

“ But you see I’m not, sir.” 

“ Not what ? ” 

“ A handsome dog. I am a steady, gray-haired 
woman.” 

“ I turned off a girl once, because ” — 

“ Come, uncle ! enough of that ! ” 

Dr. Crocker’s voice rang with a stern imperious- 
ness that produced an instantaneous and remarkable 
effect on the old man. He nervously fingered the 
paper-cutter Alice had replaced. 

“Know any thing about nursing?” he asked 
quietly now. 


Alice Inquires of R. Crocker, 


25 


“A great deal.’' 

“ Any specialty ? ” 

“Yes, sir. My specialty is dealing with people 
who fly all to pieces, and make targets of their 
friends. That is the reason I thought you might 
find me useful.” 

She awaited the effect of this bomb with inward 
uneasiness. She was experimenting on this strange 
old man. 

Dr. Crocker approached the invalid with a seda- 
tive in his hand. A broad smile beamed on his face. 
He extended the glass to his uncle. 

“ Ralph, she’s got the impudence of the devil ! ” 

“ I should simply say independence,” says the 
doctor. 

“ Do you want people to be afraid of you, sir?” 
Alice asks, folding her black-mittened hands com- 
posedly. 

“No! of course I don’t.” 

“ And don’t you want them to tell the truth ? ” 

“Tell the truth ! Infernal blazes, the difficulty is 
to find a woman who will tell it ! ” 

“Well, isn’t the truth that you do get cross?” 

“ H’m, h’m 1” It was a sort of affirmative grunt. 

“And don’t you make things lively for your 
attendants ? ” 

“H’m, h’m,” again with a flicker of amusement in 
the hard gray eyes. 

“ And isn’t it as much as a woman’s life is worth 
to deny that the moon is made of green cheese if 
you say that it is ? ” 

“No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t ! Ralph, your Mistress 
Alice here is blackening my character ! ” 

“You had better get her to read some for you, 
she reads nicely,” was Dr. Crocker’s contribution to 
this queer interview. This demure woman in gray 
serge had certainly adopted a new line of attack. 
She evidently had tactics of her own. He awaited 
the result with amused interest. 


26 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


“ She’ll read to me about the fashions, like the last 
one did, or the deaths and marriages, that’s all a 
woman sees in the paper.” 

“ I’m an advocate of dress-reform,” says Alice, 
placidly possessing herself of the paper under his 
hand. ‘‘ So the fashion items have no interest for 
me. It is one of the rules of our society that we 
regard every thing but gray serge and skimp skirts as 
temptations of the Evil One. I suppose it isn’t safe 
to read any thing about politics to you? ” 

“ Why not ? ” 

The sick man looked at this novel specimen of 
unterrified womankind quizzically. 

“ Because I’m not informed as to which side of 
the fence you are on, and if I happened to praise the 
wrong man, you might fling all those things about 
the room again. It hurts my back so to stoop and 
pick up things.” 

A low laugh from Dr. Crocker, a dry, convulsive 
chuckle from the sick man, and an audible “ Well, I 
never! ” from Edith, greeted this sally. 

Then Alice, having folded the paper down at a 
portion she had selected, read in her best style a 
few editorial comments on the questions of the 
day. 

“Well, sir,” she said, coming to a sudden period 
“ I am waiting for your decision.” 

“You think you will like it here?” 

“ No, sir. I am quite sure I shall not.” 

“ What in the devil are you here for, then ? ” 

“To secure fifteen dollars a week, if I can.” 

“ H’m, you’re honest, if you’re nothing else.” 

“ But I am something else. I am really a good 
nurse.” 

“ Well, to put it another way. Do you think you 
can get along here? ” 

“ That depends 1 ” 

“ On what ? ” 

“ On you. If you are reasonable enough to recog- 


Alice Inquires of R, Crocker. 


27 


nize when a woman has done her very best to please 
you, and don’t expect more out of her than is in 
her, I should like very much to get the place. Of 
course, you know the money is my chief induce- 
ment ; but I hope you will extract as much comfort 
out of my nursing as I will out of your money.”' 

“ Ralph, what do you think about it ? ” 

“ I think you could not do better,” the doctor said 
with prompt decision, t]ien walked out of the room. 

“ Well, Mrs.”— 

“ Mistress Alice.” 

“ Well, Mistress Alice, I’ve tried all sorts of nurses 
in the five years I’ve been tied to this cursed chair. 
I’ve tried men, and had the benefit of beery breaths 
and stale tobacco ; I’ve tried young women, giddy 
pates, who thought more of Ralph’s big eyes than 
of my comfort ; I’ve tried old women, who fell 
asleep in their chairs, and had to have things flung 
at their heads to wake ’em up : I’ve tried every 
sort but honest ones. I’m inclined to give you a 
trial. I warn you, that my handsome wife yonder 
won’t like you,” said the strange old man, turning his 
eyes toward the sofa where his wife sat, a perfect 
picture of indolent grace. 

“ Why not ? ” she asked sharply, flashing her 
handsome eyes at him. 

“ Because you like pretty things, and Mistress 
Alice is so confoundedly ugly.” 

“ I like her extremely already,” said Edith, 
shocked into energy by his rudeness. “ She is a 
perfect lion-tamer. I think she would make an 
admirable superintendent for a lunatic asylum.” 

“ Perhaps I may be promoted to that giddy height 
before I die,” says Mistress Alice placidly. ‘‘Do 
you know,” she added, turning to the sick man, 
“ that all this time I have not heard the name of 
the person I may be hired to.” 

“ Fulkerson is on my door-plate. Old Fulkerson 
half the puppies in town call me.” 


28 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


Alice started involuntarily. Strange that she should 
not have noticed that name ! The name of Crocker 
had become so implanted that she had been careless. 
Fulkerson ! of all the names that one! Suddenly 
all the gay defiance in her manner left her, and she 
stood sobered and dejected. She said hurriedly, “ I 
must take time to make up my mind.” And 
muttering something about to-morrow, hurried 
away. 

So much for calling a woman ugly to her face,” 
says Edith with spiteful triumph. 


CHAPTER III. 

PRO AND CON. 


Well ? ” 

“Well.” 

Another day of distasteful labor had been dis- 
posed of. Mopsy had performed her duties in a 
purely perfunctory fashion, while Alice had trimmed 
some hats with a reckless disregard for the 
fitness of things. Another heat-burdened day had 
drawn to a sultry close, and once more the door of 
the little fourth story bed-room in Mrs. Grimm’s 
genteel boarding-house shut the two sisters in from 
the world that had all of a sudden and through no 
wrong-doing of their own changed from a gay, and 
pleasant, and friendly world into a strange, and 
dark, and hard one. 

Mopsy had panted with impatience over the 
slowly lagging hours that kept her from learning 
the result of Alice’s venturesome step. 

Alice longed for the evening with equal impa- 
tience, so that she could confide to her sister the 
story of the sudden complications that had arisen 
between her and that coveted fifteen dollars a week. 


Pro and Con. 


29 


Mopsy’s impatience found vent in that question- 
ing “ well ’’ ? so soon as Alice, divested of bonnet 
and gloves, took her seat. It was prolonged while 
her sister, deliberately unbuttoning her hot shoes, 
exchanged them for cool slippers, and then said : — 

“ It amounts to this, Mopsy. I can have this 
place, if I dare take it.” 

“ Dare take it ! W/hy, I thought all the daring 
consisted in the disguise you assumed, and you 
dared that.” 

“Yes, I dared that, and most successfully, too. 
I also supposed that to be the worst feature of the 
case ; but, Mopsy, his name is Fulkerson ! ” 

Mopsy started violently, and sat staring at Alice 
stupidly, then, after a pause:— 

“But what of that? New York must duplicate 
men’s names thousands of times. I expect you 
could find the name of Fulkerson fifty times over in 
the directory. There is just one chance in that fifty 
that this sick old man is that particular Fulkerson.” 

The clangor of a brazen-tongued dinner-bell smote 
upon their ears. In somber silence they made the 
meager improvement in their toilets, which only gave 
pathetic emphasis to the change in their circum- 
stances : the strength of old habits still maintained 
after the occasion for their exercise had passed away. 
They were mentally occupied in counting the 
chances for and against this being the only Mr. 
Fulkerson they had any knowledge of. 

“ But this Mr. Fulkerson is exactly like what we 
had imagined that old man to be. Uncompromising 
in his own views of right and wrong, and merciless 
to any one who deceives him.” 

“ But that Mr. Fulkerson was not quite merciless, 
Allie. He stopped short of a public execution 
which saved us from open disgrace.” 

“ Stopped short of it, when we voluntarily 
sacrificed our home and the houses whose rental 
made us independent. Stopped short when every 


30 


Old Fidkersofts Clerk. 


thing dear father had left us had been given up. 
Stopped short as Shylock stopped, because the next 
cut would have brought blood.” 

Alice spoke with the most intense bitterness of 
voice and manner. Mopsy looked wistfully up at 
her from her lower attitude : — 

“ Oh, Allie, don’t look so hard and bitter ! Thank 
God that he did stop short of making us a target for 
the finger of scorn. You know our little all did not 
cover half his losses. His letter to your lawyer was 
very mild. He spoke even of giving the offender 
another chance if he would show any remorse for his 
guilt.” 

“ Instead of which the offender preferred stepping 
over into Canada, the paradise for criminals, where, 
no doubt, he is at this moment enjoying his ill- 
gotten gains to the full of his luxurious bent. Oh, 
Mopsy, this world is a topsy-turvy affair.” 

An hour later, as they came back up the steep 
stairs together, Mopsy said, quite as if she had 
spoken only a second before : — 

“ But, Allie, you never wronged this Mr. Fulkerson, 
granting him to be that one.” 

‘‘ But my husband did.” 

“You and that old man were both dupes of the 
same smooth tongue, false heart,, and angelic face ! 
Dennis Davenport was an arch-deceiver.” 

“ Hush ! I can not bear it. I can not bear it.” 

Alice dropped her convulsed face into her palms 
for one second. She raised it again presently, wet 
and white. 

“ It crushes me with humiliation even at this late 
day to remember my blind infatuation for that man ! 
Oh God, if I could only wipe out the memory of 
the three years I spent in a fool’s paradise, as his 
wife ! And to think that I suffer still for his guilt ! 
I must shrink because he sinned ! ” 

“ But you need not,” says Mopsy with emphatic 
denial. “ So far from wronging this old man by 


Pro and Con. 


31 


accepting this situation, there is a bond between you 
that would make it easier for you to understand and 
endure. If he knew all the facts of the case, he 
could have nothing but pity and honor for you. So 
far from wronging him, you impoverished yourself to 
lessen his loss.” 

“ Ah, and you, too/! It is a cruel shame that you 
should be involved.” 

“ Hush ! What I did, I did voluntarily. Legally, 
they could not have touched mine ; but I could not 
bear that taint or smirch should come near the name 
of Gregory, father’s name, that he left us unsullied 
and revered.” 

I’ve thought of little else all day. We need the 
money so much.” 

‘‘ So much that we can not afford to relinquish it 
for a sentiment. We can pay off the mortgage all 
the quicker, and get back into the dear little home 
years sooner. Let us call it settled, and not spend 
another thought on the tragic part of the question. 
You’ve not told me yet what sort of a place it is, 
how you liked the general look of things, nor, indeed, 
any thing at all about your interview.” 

Whereupon Alice made her sister acquainted with 
all that had happened to her, that morning, in the 
house on Park Avenue. 

I can see that you like Dr. Crocker already,” 
says Mopsy astutely. 

“ Yes, I do. He is a man who impresses one at 
first sight with a sense of dignity and earnestness. 
He is the controlling spirit of the house. Mrs. 
Fulkerson, I should say, is handsome, frivolous and 
unhappy.’’ 

The old, old story, I suppose. Barter and sale, 
December and May.” 

Doubtless. But, Mopsy ” — 

^‘Well?” 

“About yourself, dear. You will be so lonely.” 

“Yes; but that can’t be helped, sister.” 


32 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


“You wouldn’t be willing to take a room-mate? 
One of the girls from your place, say.” 

“ No, no, no. I can take a smaller and cheaper room. 
But the privacy this miserable little room affords is 
our one luxury now. I could not bear to see any 
one in your chair, Allie, or have any one try to fill 
your place to me.” 

“ Poor Mopsy. Oh my darling, to think that you, 
too, should have been ingulfed !” 

“ It won’t last forever, Allie. We are both young, 
and you are strong. No doubt there are thousands 
of women in the city who would envy us the pos- 
session of even a prospective home.” 

“ Not women brought up as you and I were.” 

“ Thousands of them,” Mopsy repeated firmly. 

“ Do you suppose, wherever he may be, he ever 
suffers remorse at the thought of what he has brought 
upon us ? Do you suppose he ever grieves to think 
of how he found me, and how he left me?” 

“ I never waste a thought on him,” said the 
younger girl bitterly. “ If I did, however, I should 
certainly never expect a man who was capable of 
defrauding his wife in order to conceal the frauds 
practiced on his employer, to suffer remorse in any 
shape. Remorse presupposes a conscience. I do 
not think Dennis Davenport possessed such a thing.” 
Then, with a little gesture of impatience, “ I thought, 
Allie, when we lost sight of him, we agreed never to 
touch upon the past, as our only safeguard against 
hatred, bitterness and all uncharitableness.” 

“ So we did, and so we must, only this strange 
coincidence of names has stirred the cup to its bitter 
dregs. Now, then, dear, I think I had better look 
over my papers to-night, preserving only such as 
have any business significance. We are such home- 
less wanderers for the present that the less one has 
to move about the better off one is.” 

Mopsy walked hastily away to the window. The 
prospect of to-morrow’s home-coming with no Alice 


Pro and Con. 


33 


to come in and take the little wicker rocking-chair 
and put it under the gas-jet, to read the paper there 
is no time for in the morning, has just given her a 
stab in advance. The array of long, dull evenings 
that she will have to sit out by herself, with no sound 
more cheerful than the click-clack of the type- 
writer, looms up app'allingly. It is all too dismal to 
be faced by a show of smiling indifference. She 
supposed she could learn to bear it as she had borne 
other bitter things ; but just now the pain of it was 
very acute. She leaned her head against the win- 
dow-frame, and let the hot, blinding tears fall un- 
checked down her cheeks. Any motion of hand or 
handkerchief would betray her, and she did not wish 
Allie to know how helplessly she was quivering under 
this fresh demand for sacrifice. 

Down below there in the street, the people were 
hurrying up town and tearing down town and 
scrambling across town, as they were always hurry- 
ing and tearing and scrambling. The huge lumber- 
ing beer-vans rolled by with a mighty roar, followed 
by the feeble clatter of empty milk-cans in a cart. 
A one-armed soldier, with an old army cap extended 
for alms in his only hand, was essaying to make his 
voice in song heard above the uproar in the street. 
The electric lights, like a cluster of moons swung 
high over the park opposite, gave vividness to all 
the out door life of the neighborhood. The feeble 
strains of “ Wait till the clouds roll by ” were ground 
out of an asthmatic hand-organ. What else had she 
and Allie been doing for the past four years? Some 
clouds never rolled by. Some people were born to 
abide in the shadow of them forever. 

Alice’s voice aroused her from a bitter reverie. 
Furtively dabbling her eyes and nose with her hand- 
kerchief, she turned to find her sister environed with 
the litter of torn and discarded letters. 

“Come here, Mopsy.” 

She walked over to the desk, and stood, with her 


34 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


hands resting on Allie’s shoulders, looking over 
them, but keeping her tell-tale face in the shadow. 
An unframed photograph, cabinet size, was lying on 
the desk lid. It was the picture of a man in his 
early prime. Broad-shouldered, and well-built, and 
scrupulously dressed. The face was a very striking 
one, conveying, as it did, two distinctly opposed and 
conflicting impressions. The upper part of the face, 
with its broad, white forehead, large, soft eyes, arch- 
ing eyebrows, and straight, clear-cut-nose, formed a 
most attractive and winning combination. ■“ The 
face of an intellectual man endowed with the finest 
sensibilities,” one would have pronounced it. The 
lower face, with its square jaw and cruel, sensual, 
thick-lipped mouth, was repellent in the extreme. 
“ The face of a man capable of conceiving any 
amount of evil, with the determination to carry it 
into effect,” one would have pronounced it. 

“Do you wonder?” said Alice in a low voice, 
laying her hand over the lower face, and glancing up 
at Mopsy. 

“ Yes, I wonder.” Mopsy gently removed her 
sister’s hand, and placed her own over the upper 
face. .. 

“ Oh 1 but I was so young! And the cruel mouth 
had a trick of soft words, that the splendid eyes 
indorsed.” 

“ Extenuating circumstances, no doubt. I thought 
you had destroyed them all,” — nodding impatiently 
at the picture. 

“ I thought so, too. This one, being without a 
frame, escaped my notice, I suppose. Burn it ! I am 
glad 1 have grown strong enough to look at it criti- 
cally, and read the lines correctly.” 

Mopsy seized the picture, and held it with vicious 
satisfaction in the flame of the gas-jet, until the 
broad, white forehead, and the beguiling eyes, and 
the flowing English whiskers, and the cruel mouth, 
and the strong, square jaw, and the fashionable tie, 


Mrs. Fulkerson Writes' a Letter. 3 5 

and the broad shoulders, had all been reduced to a 
charred and curled bit of black paper. 

“ And yet,” — she flung the scrap of white card- 
board left between thumb and forefinger — “ he still 
lives.” 

“ Still lives ! ” Alice echoed drearily. 

“ Is still your husband in the sight of God and 
man. Still has the legal right to command and tor- 
ture you ! ” 

And once more Alice answered like an echo, 
“ Command and torture ! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

MRS. FULKERSON WRITES A LETTER. 

Alice had been Mr. Fulkerson’s attendant for 
some weeks, when Mrs. Fulkerson had occasion to 
answer a letter in the following terms : — 

“My Dear Mother: — What you write me of 
Georgina’s foolish love affair distresses me more 
than words can express. We have a right to expect 
something very brilliant in the way of marriage 
from a girl endowed as she is. Suppose you send 
her on a visit to me. I can imagine nothing better 
as a cure for such folly than a gay winter in New 
York. I suppose you will ask how I can promise 
any thing gay, chained as I am to a log. Let me 
tell you of a great relief that has come to me in a 
most unexpected fashion. Mr. Fulkerson has a 
nurse. Well, you will say, he has had dozens of 
nurses before. So he has. The only difference is, 
that the other nurses, male and female, young and 
old, were afraid of him. This one he is afraid of. 
She is the queerest specimen of humanity. Judge 
her by her walk and the shape of her back, a hump 
on the shoulders and all the way down, she looks to 
be about forty. She is quite gray, and, I suppose. 


3 ^ 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


has weak eyes ; for she is never seen without her 
smoked-glass spectacles. But she is very intelligent 
and skillful, and has such a sweet looking mouth 
that one can not call her positively ugly. She man- 
ages Mr. Fulkerson in the most wonderful fashion. 
You can fancy how I appreciate her; for since her 
coming my time is pretty much at my own disposal. 
Moreover, if Georgie is with me, it will become my 
duty to go more into society. I am positively 
yearning, or yawning, either will do, for some 
change. I can create quite a sensation here with 
Georgina this winter, and if I don’t make her forget 
her Canada adorer very quickly, you ^ may set me 
down for a bungler. I wish you could come with 
her. But whether you can or not-, send me Georgie, 
and I will send her back to you, plus a rich hus- 
band. Life is an awfully stupid thing with me just 
now. Ralph is the same frozen dignitary you 
know of. He is virtuously absorbed in his uncle’s 
case, and in his own growing practice. He thinks 
the new nurse. Mistress Alice, a wonderful improve- 
ment on her predecessors. She has been with us 
only a month, but has that terrible old man under 
complete control. It is well for my future chances 
of inheritance that she is as ugly as she is. You 
know, if Ralph were to marry, and have children, 
I should lose tremendously. He could only make 
one marriage I should like, and that is to our 
Georgie. He is handsomer than ever. If I could 
love any thing foolishly, it would be Ralph Crocker. 
But thanks to your careful training, the sentimental 
element in my nature was long since eliminated. I 
am safe, then, and so is he. Write me when to look 
for the child, so that the carriage may meet her at 
the station. 

“ Your affectionate daughter, 

“ Edith M. Fulkerson.” 

Having addressed this letter to Mrs. Ellen 
Markam, Toronto, Canada, and mailed it, Mrs. Ful- 


Mrs. Fulkerson Writes a Letter. 37 

kerson counted off on her jeweled fingers the num- 
ber of days that must elapse before an answer could 
possibly arrive. 

Edith Fulkerson was one of those women one is 
compelled to like g.fter a fashion, even after an 
allowance for the full measure of contempt due to 
her palpable shortcomings and utter selfishness. 
She seemed rather irresponsible than purposely 
vicious. Nature had intended her, perhaps, for a 
thoroughly lovable woman. But her mother had 
taken issue with nature, and altered her daughter 
to suit her own ideas, finally putting her upon the 
matrimonial market in the shape of a very beautiful 
and altogether soulless woman. Intelligent above 
the average, she soon made for herself the reputa- 
tion of a wit. The daughter of a retired English 
officer who had come to this country because his 
meager pension could be stretched further here, 
she had been carefully trained by her mother to 
regard poverty as disreputable, if not actually 
criminal, and a thing to be got rid of at any 
cost to heart or principles. Her beauty and her wit 
were simply her tools, and so well did she use them 
that she even transcended the maternal expectations 
by capturing in her first season the rich Mr. Telfair 
Fulkerson, a man many years her senior. 

But what of that ? Mr. Fulkerson was a man of 
stern rectitude, whose relations to fashionable 
society had always been rather antagonistic than 
otherwise. But he made unconditional surrender 
to handsome Edith Markam within a very few weeks 
after chance had thrown them together in the 
quiet seclusion of a mountain resort. The wooing had 
been short, the acceptance prompt, the marrying 
in haste. Whether repentance had ever followed at 
leisure, no one could say, for Mr. and Mrs. Fulkerson 
were too well bred to display their grievances for 
the world’s entertainment. 

Her sudden elevation from the extreme of 


38 


Old Fulkerson^ s Clerk. 


poverty to the glittering height of assured wealth 
sufficed for a little while to fill Edith’s starved fancy 
and pinched life with a species of content that 
passed master excellently well for happiness. For 
a long time the childish gratification of having 
things, of squandering dollars where she had before 
feared to spend pence, to lavish beautiful things on 
her own lovely person, to adorn her home with costly 
and luxurious things, furnished her with a harmless 
sort of excitement, and kept her in perfect accord 
with the somewhat wearing conditions of a busy 
man’s life. But after a while, the jewels and the 
silks and the laces lost the fascination of novelty, 
and sank into every-day significance.' The beauti- 
ful rooms became matters of course ; life grew 
insipid and stale. She had no resources within 
herself. Then a little dissatisfied curve took perma- 
nent position in the corners of her mouth, a wistful 
look came into her lovely eyes, and silent discontent 
established its. citadel in her heart.. 

So much for the woman. As for the man ! Mr. 
Fulkerson had departed from his own line of life 
in a marvelous spirit of concession during the first 
years of his married life. He recognized the great 
disparity of years between them and tried to bridge 
the gulf over by indulgences manifold. In return 
for such concessions as going the rounds of fashion- 
able society at her bidding, and haunting the opera 
or theaters for her pleasure, he had hoped she 
would come to recognize in him something more 
than the purse bearer, who was the giver of all the 
temporal goods she so dearly prized. Moreover, 
within himself, he was perfectly conscious of the 
motive that had decided him to woo this beautiful 
young girl against his calmer, better judgment. 

Telfair Fulkerson had worked his own way up in 
the world, from the position of a poorly paid entry 
clerk to that of a millionaire by slow steps and 
honest methods, so slowly, indeed, that his youth 


Mrs. Fulkerson Writes a Letter. 39 

and his time for falling in love had slipped away from 
him while he was still delving. But now, with his 
millions secured, with his hands clean, but his heart 
empty, came the natural longing for something of his 
own name and blood to inherit his hard-earned 
gold. 

There wa$ Ralph. True ! Of his own blood, but 
not his name. After all, a sister’s son was but a 
poor substitute for a child of one’s own loins and an 
inheritor of one’s own name. He was too sensible a 
man not to know that his money was more to Edith 
than himself. But he would forgive her the knowl- 
edge of it, and lavish his all on her highest caprice, 
if she would but give him a son — a son who should 
be possessed of her perfect physical beauty and 
bright intellect, a son who should bear the name of 
Fulkerson honorably and worthily, keeping it 
unspotted as his father had left it ! But the years 
went on, and the Fulkerson name found no claimant. 
Then the bitterness of the old man’s disappointment 
crept from his heart to his lips, and mingled its drop 
of gall with his cup of life. Notwithstanding all 
which, the Fulkersons ranked with those common- 
place mortals who were content with life as they 
found it, decorously keeping their skeletons in the 
background. 

And this had come to be the settled order of 
things years before Mr. Fulkerson had been brought 
home one day in a carriage, a helpless, stricken man, 
cast from stirring activity into a bondage worse than 
death in one brief hour. Then as never before Mr. 
and Mrs. Fulkerson needed the deathless bond of 
mutual love and esteem. Then as never before 
they were both to be pitied. 

People said that old Fulkerson had succumbed to 
the shock he received when Dennis Davenport, his 
private secretary and confidential clerk, ran off one 
day with thirty thousand dollars of his money. It 
is true, the matter had been satisfactorily settled, no 


40 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


one knew exactly how ; but there had been no com- 
plaint filed, no prosecution attempted. And but for 
the disappearance of the millionaire himself from 
business circles, there would have been no scandal. 
It was through the old man’s “ stroke ” a few months 
later that the matter had gained any sort of publicity. 
No one either knew or cared what had become of the 
defaulter. Old Fulkerson’s clerk had been quite a 
swell at one time. He was a handsome dog, with no 
end of assurance. Next. 

When it was declared probable by the physicians 
that Mr. Fulkerson would never recover the use of 
his limbs, the clouds seemed to settle down in black 
earnest over the house in Park Avenue, where was 
every thing to make life smooth and pleasant, except 
food for hungry hearts. 

It was too dismal, this living alone with a soured 
and embittered rnan, chained to a chair, venting the 
disappointments of a life-time upon one weak woman. 

Then Dr. Crocker was summoned to bear his share 
of the infliction. He became a third member of an 
ill-assorted circle. Now his uncle would permit of 
no attendance but his, and the young doctor, whose 
pride was enlisted in the extension of his city prac- 
tice and the building up of a name for himself, cast 
about him for some one who could share his burden 
with him. He knew quite well what he wanted 
when he inserted that carefully worded advertise- 
ment. But what chance was there of getting it? 

Then Mistress Alice came — quiet, gray, demure, 
never obtrusive, never confused, gentle to meek- 
ness, fearless in execution, always cheerful, and 
withal possessed of sufficient force of character, 
without exciting his enmity to dominate the un- 
happy man, who was given to wreak his spite against 
fate or whosoever came handy. Dr. Crocker recog- 
nized in her a powerful coadjutor and intelligent 
assistant. Mr. Fulkerson saw in her redemption 
from stupidity, cupidity, and careless indifference to 


At the Mercy of a Dog, 41 

every thing but the money to be extracted from 
him. Edith saw in her some one who was gradually 
making her exacting lord less observant of her own 
shortcomings as sick nurs^ and general attendant, 
and rejoiced greatly thereat. 

Only poor, lonely Mopsy, wistfully counting the 
days between the red-letter Sundays that brought 
Alice to spend the whole day with her, patiently 
pursuing her hueless path alone, saw very little to 
rejoice at in Alice’s installation as nurse. 


CHAPTER V. 

AT THE MERCY OF A DOG. 

That Mistress Alice was any thing more than the 
quiet, gray mouse of a woman ” that Mrs. Ful- 
kerson had called her after the first few weeks of her 
successful administration, neither the sick man, Dr. 
Crocker, nor Mrs. Fulkerson for a moment suspected. 
Why should they ? This is not the age of romance 
and mystery, nor was the sick-room of an old and 
exacting man the arena any one would be likely 
to select for enacting a romantic or mysterious role. 
So the days came and went, and Alice gradually 
lifted from Ralph Crocker’s overburdened shoulders 
the weight of responsibility he had borne unassisted 
before her advent, in consequence of which his city 
practice was suffering materially. 

“You know, Ralph,” the old man would say, “ Fve 
been deceived once. Fve been deceived where I 
trusted most ; where I had a right to trust. Dennis 
lied tome, and stole from me. Edith wants me out 
of the way ; of course she does. It’s natural. I 
won’t take any medicine from any one but you, 
Ralph. Do you hear ? ” 

This had been the refrain, and this the unbroken 


42 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


determination of the soured and suspicious old rhan, 
until one morning, to the doctor’s outward sur- 
prise and inward relief, as he moved toward the 
cabinet to, prepare his uncle’s morning draught, the 
old man arrested him : — 

“ Mistress Alice can do that, Ralph. Her hand is 
as steady as a clock. I don’t believe she has a nerve 
in her body ; at least, none of the hystericky sort.” 

As Alice had never heard the old man’s constant 
outbursts against the Dennis who had deceived 
him, nor the wife who was tired of him, these wails 
being preserved for Dr. Crocker’s exclusive benefit, 
she could not know what a triumph this concession 
was. But she did see that it pleased Dr. Crocker, 
and therefore was glad of it. 

“ I will confess to you,” he said, as they stood 
together in his little alcove office later on, “ that by 
winning my uncle’s confidence so promptly, you 
have proved yourself a benefactor to me.” 

He had been giving her full and exact directions 
for the various draughts and potions, and the hours 
for their administering. 

“ I am glad,” said Alice in the slow, gentle fashion 
she had decided to be in character, “ if I have been 
any help to you. But I am afraid to have the entire 
responsibility of him thrown on me. We will — he 
will miss you. I hope you are not going to desert 
us entirely.” 

She held out her hand for the vials. They were 
never without the long black mittens that concealed 
the blue-veined back and the soft pink palm of a 
very pretty hand ; but the white, round, tapering 
finger-tips, with nails as delicate as sea-shells, 
attracted the doctor’s attention. 

“ What a young looking hand,” was his mental 
exclamation. Aloud: “You are not rid of me. 
Mistress Alice, by any means. I believe I enjoy 
your reading almost as much as my uncle does. It 
is a rare thing to hear a woman read aloud under- 


43 


At the Mercy of a Dog. 

standingly. It is rest for me to loll in the big chair 
of mornings while you read. It is also rest of 
another sort for me to be ^freed from the necessity 
of being on hand at the exact moment for every 
dose of medicine. In short, you haven’t got rid 
of me at all. It is only I who have got rid of the 
bottles. By the way, I am glad of this opportunity 
to ask you about yourself. Your room is comfort- 
able ? You are satisfied, I hope ? ” 

‘‘ Quite comfortable. My room is pretty and cool, 
thank you.” 

“No inroads have been made upon your hours of 
rest ? ” 

“ None. Mr. Fulkerson grows daily more con- 
siderate of my comfort, rather than less.” 

“ That is because he likes you. I told you his 
friendship was well worth the gaining. He trusts 
slowly, more slowly now than ever before ; but he 
judges astutely.” 

Then Alice, impelled by what desire she could 
hardly have explained to herself, said tentatively: — 

“ He often hints at having had his faith in human 
nature shattered. Is a family secret involved, or 
may I know how and through whom he has received 
such a shock? Sometimes, you know, it helps a 
nurse to be able to combat fanciful notions. There 
are various ways of physicking people, and of curing 
them.” 

If Dr. Crocker’s eyes had been fastened on Alice’s 
face instead of on the spatula with which he was 
rolling a pill-mixture, he might have detected signs 
of agitation that did not find their way into the 
carefully modulated tones of her voice. As it was, 
he only smiled at what he set down to the proverbial 
curiosity of sick-nurses, feeling at the same time a 
slight diminution of respect. He had thought her 
a trifle above such petty prying. 

“ It is no family secret,” he said, deftly rolling the 
pill-mixture into the shape of a worm. “ My uncle 


44 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


had a confidential clerk, whom he had taken in hand 
as a mere stripling, and about whom his affections 
seem to have intwined themselves with rather 
unusual tenacity for him. This clerk, after sys- 
tematically stealing from his employer for five or 
six years, finally made a misstep in Wall Street, 
through which his reckless speculations suddenly 
came to light, and he disappeared one night, leaving 
my uncle some thirty thousand dollars the poorer 
through his rascality. Candidly, Uncle Telfair 
seemed to mind the loss of the money less than he 
did finding out that Dennis Davenport was a 
scoundrel.” 

The vials in Mistress Alice’s hands' rattled against 
each other. Dr. Crocker glanced up from his spatula, 
as she sank slowly into the chair by which she had 
been standing. 

“ I am a little dizzy this morning,” she said, fore- 
stalling any inquiry. “ I think Mr. Fulkerson’s room 
is kept a little closer than need be.” There was no 
tremor in the quiet voice. 

“You must regulate those things with a view to 
your own comfort as well as his,” said the doctor 
kindly, approaching her with a glass of wine. “ His 
former nurses, as a rule abject hirelings, have allowed 
him to contract any number of senseless quirks and 
whims.” 

“What became of De — of the clerk? Did Mr. 
Fulkerson punish him for his crime? ” 

“ What became of him, no one can say accurately, 
though it is a safe guess that he stepped over into 
Canada to enjoy his stolen wealth. I was not living 
in New York at the time. I was located in Bayonne, 
and only gave up my practice there on account of 
my uncle’s helpless condition. As for punishment, 
I can not discover that my uncle ever meditated 
prosecuting him. He acted with singular clemency 
toward the criminal, who, by the way, is said to have 
satisfied some of his creditors by the sacrifice of all 


ihe Mercy of a Dog. 


45 


his property. At least, the effort to do so, through 
a firm of lawyers acting professedly for Davenport, 
inclined my uncle to think that his defaulting clerk 
had repented him of his crimes, made restitution as 
far as was in his power, and then gone where he 
could make a fresh start." 

“ Was the clerk a married man ? " 

“That I do not know," the doctor answered in a 
voice meant to discourage any further questioning. 
“ These men lead two entirely distinct lives. One, 
an up town social life, another, the down town busi- 
ness life. For the woman’s sake I hope he had no 
wife." 

Alice rose to go, filled with a sense of relief. 

“ One thing more. Mistress Alice. Never, if you 
please, voluntarily direct my uncle’s thoughts to this 
painful topic. Should he ever — and it is not un- 
likely that he may come to speak to you of Dennis 
Davenport’s depravity — why, then" — 

“ Then — it will be time for me to take an interest 
in it. Trust me, the subject of Mr. Fulkerson’s clerk 
is one I am not likely to introduce," said Alice, with 
a degree of excitement in her voice that caused Dr. 
Crocker to say to himself after she had gone away 
from him : 

“She has a temper. I presume she resented my 
dictating a line of conduct to her. Well, so long as 
her temper does not clash with Uncle Telfair’s, 
where’s the odds ? She’s a good nurse, and I am 
not going to be the first one to fall out with her." 

The alcove in which he was at work on the pill- 
mixture was scarcely more than an extension of the 
large library, with its well-filled shelves that were 
such a perpetual delight to Alice, and whither she 
stole eagerly whenever Mr. Fulkerson fell into one 
of his prolonged day naps, leaving her at liberty. 

This alcove had a small side door which opened 
upon a short gallery across which one had to pass 
in order to reach Dr. Crocker’s consulting-room for 


46 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


general patients. This consulting-room constituted, 
with one other room, what was known as the stone 
wing — a one-storied excrescence growing out of the 
side of the handsome Fulkerson mansion. The end 
room in this extension was known as the nurse’s 
room, and had been apportioned her on the first day 
of her arrival. It was small, but light and prettily 
furnished, and, by comparison with the room in 
which she had left desolate Mopsy at Mrs. Grimm’s, 
luxurious in the extreme. The octagon end of the 
wing looked immediately on the pretty little garden 
occupying that part of the premises which was gained 
by a flight of two or three steps only. No one made 
any use of the garden. It was simply a small beauty 
spot inserted in the stone flagging of the yard. The 
flowers, bright-hued coleus and flashing geraniums, 
did not appeal to Mrs. Fulkerson’s aesthetic taste for 
roses and other royal members of the floral kingdom ; 
so it served only to secure still greater privacy and 
independence to Mistress Alice, when she was at 
home. She took her meals alone, in the grand 
salon, at an earlier hour than Dr.- Crocker and Mrs. 
Fulkerson took theirs, so that her chances of detec- 
tion were certainly reduced to a minimum. 

In the meantime her fifteen dollars a week were 
clear gain, and were regularly added to the hoard, 
which was to pay off the mortgage on the pretty 
little cottage belonging to Mopsy, now rented to 
their mortgagee, and where they meant some of 
these days to live a life of peace and privacy. 

When Alice left him. Dr. Crocker went into his 
consulting-room. It was his office. Leaning idly 
back in his office chair, his hands clasped behind his 
head, his thoughts wandering at will over a very 
wide area, his attention was suddenly drawn to the 
frantic gambols of a member of the Fulkerson house- 
hold who has not yet been made acquainted with the 
reader. Let me hasten to make good the omission. 

Reader — Dandy.” 


At the Mercy of a Dog, 


47 


Dandy was a pug to whom the lines of life had 
fallen in pleasant places. Adored of his mistress, 
whose constant companion he was in walk or drive, 
he led a life of luxurious leisure, and, when seated 
upon the front seat of Mrs. Fulkerson’s landau, he 
gazed imperiously down upon less fortunate canines 
or gave a haughty tinkle of his silver bells. He filled 
many a currish heart with envious hatred, which no 
doubt he recognized and enjoyed hugely. 

At the moment when Dr. Crocker’s attention was 
drawn toward Dandy, he was executing an extrava- 
ganza with head and feet over a white something. 
What, the doctor could not at that distance discern. 

The doctor was among the large majority of Mrs. 
Fulkerson’s acquaintances who placidly endured 
Dandy’s exultations while secretly detesting him. 

“ Come here, sir,” he called now in his most per- 
emptory tones. And Dandy obeyed with crestfallen 
promptness, dragging his treasure-trove after him by 
the teeth. 

“What have you there, sir?” asked the doctor 
sternly, as the culprit looked up at him with apolo- 
getic eyes, and lowered his curling tail to half-mast. 
Dandy dejectedly laid at his stern interlocutor’s feet 
the white something he had been tossing about in a 
perfect ecstasy of enjoyment, then stood with bowed 
head awaiting sentence. 

Ralph, stooping to pick the thing up, found him- 
self in possession of some ten or twelve pages of 
manuscript neatly clamped together at the left- 
hand top corner, and closely written in Mistress 
Alice’s fine, neat chirography. 

With some natural curiosity, but more vexation, 
he smoothed the crumpled sheets out on the desk 
before him, using his handkerchief and a rubber to 
obliterate all signs of Dandy’s desecrating touch. 
Then he read : — 

“Chapter Ten. — Set Apart.” 

“ Mistress Alice a scribbler,” he said to himself, 


48 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


and a low whistle, indicative of mingled amusement 
and surprise, floated audibly through the alcove, 
and smote upon Alice’s tingling ears, as she just 
then raised the portiere, and opened her lips to 
deliver a message sent by Mr. Fulkerson. 

The familiar sight of her own manuscript lying 
there on the desk in front of Dr. Crocker drove 
the message completely out of her memory, and 
sent her sweeping forward with cheeks aflame. 

“ I am at a loss to understand ! ” she began, then 
stopped suddenly, mindful of the fact that a display 
of hauteur would be a ridiculous mistake. 

Dr. Crocker turned toward her with a cold stare. 

There is no difficulty in understanding that Mrs. 
Fulkerson’s pug is an incorrigible mischief-maker. 
I have just rescued this paper from him, in time to 
prevent its complete destruction. Perhaps in future 
you will be so good as to see that your door is kept 
closed.” 

He handed the manuscript to her with frigid 
politeness. He was provoked with himself for feel- 
ing either interest or curiosity on the subject of the 
private pursuits of his uncle’s nurse. 

She delivered her message from Mr. Fulkerson in 
a wooden fashion. She was humiliated by the con- 
sciousness that she had been made ridiculous in the 
eyes of this grave, earnest man, with no means of 
vindicating herself. And all through a dog. 

As for Dandy, he stood with his head turned on 
one side, regarding them alternately with evident 
disapproval. It was plainly their duty, according to 
his view of the case, to return him the papers he had 
secured entirely through his own industry and en- 
terprise. Perhaps he would have shared the mental 
discomfort of his betters at this awkward juncture, 
had he been aware that Mistress Alice, hitherto 
blandly indifferent to his very existence, had sud- 
denly enrolled herself among his most implacable 
enemies, 


Mrs. Ftdkerson* s Letter is Answered. 


49 


Alice turned at the portiere, to say apologetic- 
ally — 

“ I hope you will forgive my childish outburst. I 
was startled and — I was — afraid — you would think 
me very silly, to be ” — 

“Pardon me for interrupting you,” said Dr. 
Crocker. “You really owe me no apology; nor 
have I any right to think anything at all about your 
private pursuits, so long at least,” he added, “as 
they do not interfere with your discharge of the 
duties you have assumed.” 

The words were cruel and cruelly spoken. Alice 
smarted under them as under a lash. But her voice 
was as steady and her tones as cool as his own, when 
she replied : — 

“You may set your mind at rest on that score, 
sir.” 

Then they turned their backs on each other in 
wrath. 


CHAPTER VI. 

MRS. FULKERSON’S LETTER IS ANSWERED. 

Mrs. Fulkerson’s letter to her mother in Canada 
reached that lady in due course of time, and was 
the subject of much discussion in the small family 
circle composed of Colonel Markam — who since his 
retirement on half-pay from her majesty’s list of 
officers, had counted for very little in this world, 
either in army or private life — Mrs. Markam, the 
recipient of the letter, and Georgina, the subject of 
it, as, also, the object of great maternal solicitude. 

Mrs. Markam had been commandant of the post 
ever since there had been a Mrs. Markam, and 
there were no signs of abdication as time went on, 
and the colonel grew every day a little more apathet- 


50 


Old Fulkerso7t s Clerk, 


ically indifferent to the concerns of the domestic 
circle. 

Since his retirement from active service, Colonel 
Markam had failed to discover any adequate reason 
for a continuance of his existence. He had been 
very proud of his elder daughter’s beauty and wit, 
but just when he was extracting most enjoyment 
from her lively companionship, Mrs. Markam had 
disposed of her on advantageous terms to Telfair 
Fulkerson, and his first-born had gone completely 
out of his life. No one ever knew how sadly he 
missed her. Then every fiber of his really tender 
heart had fastened afresh about Georgina, his only 
other child, who had left school only to be in time 
for her debut at her sister’s wedding. 

Mrs. Markam was altogether too good a general 
to allow of two unmarried daughters in the field 
at once. 

Georgina returned her father’s affection with a 
quiet intensity he had never elicited from the more 
mercurial Edith. Life seemed altogether comfort- 
able to the colonel, with his girl at home, and his 
wife to bother over things generally, and make 
them all as' snug as possible on his miserable little 
stipend ; and so far as he was concerned, he hoped 
it might go on the same way for half a century or 
so. He failed to see why Mrs. Markam should be 
in such a frenzy of impatience to ship Georgie off 
to Edith'. The matter had been in daily discussion 
between them ever since the arrival of Mrs. Fulker- 
son’s letter, never, however, in Georgina’s hearing. 

“ What’s the trouble, wife? I’m sure we are doing 
very well as it is. Georgie’s a mere slip of a girl 
yet. We’ve only had her back a few years. What’s 
the hurry to get rid of her? ” He whirled his black 
silk skull-cap around on the top of his head in a 
way he had when his patience was completely 
exhausted. 

For answer Mrs. Markam pointed downward 


Mrs, Fulkersofts Letter is Answered. 51 

where a narrow path began m a grassy glade, and 
clambered up the steep and rocky hillside to the 
gate of the little front-yard belonging to the tiny 
cottage perched on its summit, where they were 
making their summer home. 

“ What is the trouble ? That is the trouble. That 
creature hangs about here all the time. No amount 
of rudeness on my part has the slightest effect 
upon him. More especially since you see fit to 
undo all I do by your extraordinary affability.” 

Colonel Markam’s glance followed his wife’s 
index finger. 

“And yet,” he said, “it is a pretty sight. Young 
love always is a pretty sight. Why, wife, if I were 
an artist, I should like nothing better than to paint 
them just as they sit now. Georgie on that gray 
rock, with her red shawl thrown over it, and the 
lichens for a cushion, and her bonny brown curls 
catching the sunbeams, as they gleam through the 
trees over their heads. Duncan reclining at her 
feet, with that handsome head of his thrown back 
as he looks up into our girl’s sweet face. It is a very 
pretty sight. They are an uncommonly handsome 
couple.” 

“Colonel Markam, you are certainly enough to 
drive a woman wild.” 

“ Why so, wife ? ” 

He brought his benignant glance back from the 
young couple, who had stopped to rest after a long 
walk before beginning the steep ascent to the cot- 
tage, and fixed it upon his irate wife in mild sur- 
prise. 

“Why so? Why, in every way imaginable under 
the sun. I don’t believe, if you had not been in the 
army when I was training Edith, that she would 
ever have turned out the practical, sensible woman 
she is. And, heaven knows, practical, sensible peo- 
ple are at a premium in this world. You have filled 
Georgina’s silly head so full of romantic nonsense 


52 


Old Fulkersofi s Clerk. 


about love in a cottage, that she is ready this mo- 
ment to drop into David Duncan’s arms at the first 
word. Marry him? Yes, she’d marry him in a sec- 
ond, if I was dead, and you could have your way.” 

“ She would not marry at all, wife, if I could have 
my way.” 

“That’s just like a man’s selfishness. I suppose 
you would rather see the poor darling suffer for the 
bare necessaries of life, than marry and deprive you 
of a companion.” 

“ Thanks to your excellent management, my dear, 
she is never likely to suffer for any of the necessaries 
of life.” 

Colonel Markani was an advocate of the wisdom 
of agreeing with his adversary quickly. 

“ And yet, wife,” he added, with infinite gentle- 
ness of voice and eye, “ it is something very refresh- 
ing to see in these sordid, practical days a young 
couple ready to risk every thing for love’s pure sake. 
Affection is a great anchor, wife, a very great anchor, 
indeed, in troubled waters.” 

“ Perhaps.” There was a world of withering skep- 
ticism in Mrs. Markam’s voice. “But the anchor of 
affection without the cable of common-sense to keep 
things together — really, Mr. Markam, your metaphor 
is exceedingly hard to follow out — wouldn’t avail 
much in those troubled waters.” When Mrs. Markam 
brought her common-sense battering-ram to bear 
upon the colonel’s airy structures, they were gen- 
erally shattered at the first onslaught, leaving their 
constructer silent and defeated. He only sighed 
and wished things might so adjust themselves as to 
leave him his darling daughter. He loved the child 
so well himself that he could neither marvel at, nor 
blame David Duncan for, his too evident devotion. 

“Who could help loving our Georgie?” he said 
presently, fondly arguing the case for the handsome 
criminal down yonder on the rocks, at the imminent 
risk of another snubbing for his pains. “ She looks 


Mrs. Fulkersoyt s Letter is Answered. 53 

every inch the queen of a wife, with that tall, stately 
form, and her regally planted head, and those big, 
tender eyes, and that dimpling smile. See how the 
sunlight comes out in the gold flashes in her hair!” 

“ Mercy ! ” Mrs. Markam exclaims, fanning her- 
self in a perfect frenzy of impatience at this idyllic 
logic, “ who is blaming Duncan for falling in love 
with Georgina? I am blaming her for loving him. 
If she’s all you claim for her, and I don’t say she’s 
not, and a great deal more, all the more reason why 
she should do at least as well as Edith, if not better, 
instead of throwing herself away on a man who lives 
like a prince with no visible means of support. A gam- 
bler, perhaps, who knows ? Or worse, if there be any 
thing worse.” 

As well as Edith ? Poor Edie 1 Bound for life 
to a man whom she hates.” 

The colonel passed over the latter part of the 
sentence, his black skull-cap made several excited 
gyrations, and finally subsided rakishly over one ear. 

“ By the way. Colonel Markam, have you ever 
even taken the trouble to make any inquiry in town 
about this Mr. Duncan, as I asked you to do? ” 

“Any one can see that Duncan is a gentleman,” 
says the colonel evasively. “ He was introduced to 
me by a gentleman. He is a member of the Lotos 
Club in town, and a man has to be somebody to get 
in there.” 

“ Somebody, I suppose, means a man able to pay 
his dues regularly. Can any one at the Lotos Club 
tell you who he is ? ” she demanded inexorably. 

“ I have never asked,” said the colonel, standing 
at bay ; “it will be time enough to make full 
inquiry when he has asked our girl to marry him. 
Has he done that yet?” 

“ No, not in so many words. He has done every 
thing he could, however, to drive away other suit- 
ors, and has sncceeded finely. He has the field all 
to himself now, and in all probability is pouring 


54 


Old Fulkerso7i's Clerk. 


some nonsense into her silly ears right now. His 
back looks like it, lolling at her feet like a sighing 
Strephon. You might as well make up your mind 
to it, Colonel Markam, Georgina spends this coming 
winter with her sister in New York. It shan’t be 
my fault, if she throws herself away upon a pair of 
broad shoulders and handsome eyes, with a mus- 
tache.” 

In her excitement, Mrs. Markam failed to properly 
locate the mustache, whose owner was just then 
saying, as he daringly toyed with the fluttering 
ribbons that bedecked Miss Markam’s pretty white 
dress, in fashionable profusion : — 

“ I dread to see the leaves fall, and the trees 
getting bare, more than ever within my memory. 
It means no more happy strolls, no more eager 
climbing and pleasant resting ; it means bleak, cold 
winter and — separation.” 

“ Mamma has made up her mind that I shall 
spend this winter in New York,” says Georgie, her 
down-dropped glance resting for a second on his 
face, “ and when mamma’s mind is made up, there 
is very little Left to say on either side.” 

“ New York ? ” 

The “ sighing Strephon ” at her feet sat rigidly 
erect in a second. “ Why New York ? Of all the 
noisy, bewildering, unrestful places on earth it is 
chief. And you told me you loved quiet so, and 
it was also, you said, essential to your father’s 
comfort. He certainly does not look strong. I 
can scarcely imagine him dragged around, even by 
you, through one New York season, without suffering 
irreparable injury.” 

“Dear papa! Neither can I. But he is not to 
share my exile. I am to go on a visit to a married 
sister. You will be there some time during the sea- 
son, will you not? Every body goes to New 
York.” 

“ Excepting those who go away from it,” said the 


Mrs. Fulkerson* s Letter is Answered. 55 

man at her feet with a harsh laugh, that grated on 
the girl’s tender mood. 

“ Strange,” he added, in a lighter voice, noticing 
the pained look on the sweet face above him, “that 
during the six months of our acquaintance and 
almost constant companionship, I never knew before 
that you had a married sister. I thought you were 
an only child. I think your father’s manner of 
single-hearted devotedness to you must have led me 
into the error.” 

“ To all intents and purposes I am an only child,” 
she answered. “ In reality we hear and see so little 
of my married sister ourselves, that it is not at all 
strange we do not speak of her to our new-made 
friends. If it were not for the fact that her husband, 
Mr. Fulkerson, is a confirmed paralytic, never seen 
out of one room, I doubt if Edith would ever have 
thought of wishing me with her.” 

“ Her husband, Mr. who, did you say? ” 

He was on his feet now, and asked the question, 
looking down into the girlish face upraised to 
answer him. There was a queer look about his 
mouth : a large, thick-lipped, sensual mouth, whose 
harsh curves were hidden by a long and heavy 
mustache, but from where she looked up at him, 
Georgie could see the tight compression of the lips. 

“Mr. Fulkerson, Mr. Telfair Fulkerson. Perhaps 
you know my sister’s husband, you who have been 
such a traveler.” 

“ No, I know no one of that name. I was just 
curious to hear who it was that had power to rob me 
of your precious society,” he answered coolly, grind- 
ing the gravel under his foot. 

“ Sit by me ! ” She moved slightly to make room 
for him on the crimson shawl. In the shy glance of 
her sweet eyes, in the rosy flush on her smooth 
cheeks, he read the full but wordless confession of 
her pure, ardent love for him — read it, and for a 
moment faltered. She was so guileless, so pure, so 


56 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


lovely. Pass over/’ his good angel whispered, and 
he listened — for one second. 

“ No, the sun is gone, and it is growing damp here 
on the rocks. If I keep you out much longer, Mrs. 
Markam will never entrust you to me again.” 

He held out his hand to assist her in rising. Then 
he took the red shawl, and wrapped it about her 
slender, sloping shoulders. His arms were .about 
her. He felt the thrill that the contact sent quiver- 
ing throughout her form. His clasp tightened invol- 
untarily. Her warm, palpitating form was in his 
embrace. He drew the sweet face backward and 
upward, until his eyes could burn their message into 
her soul. Love reigned triumphant. 

“ I love you.” 

The words came from her lips, not his. Their 
lips met in one long, clinging caress, then fell apart, 
leaving Georgina with bowed head and crimsoned 
cheeks, love-convicted, and throbbing with delicious 
pain throughout every fiber of her being. 

“ Poor child ! Forgive me. I am a wretch, not 
worthy to breathe the same air with you.” 

Such strange, incomprehensible words ! She 
lifted her eyes. David Duncan was already far 
below her on the rocky path, walking toward the 
little village, where he was stopping, with long, 
quick, determined strides. For a moment she stood 
stunned and wondering. She thrilled yet from the 
passionate pressure of his arms. Why had he 
turned from her in the moment of her confession? 
A flush of shame dyed neck, cheek, and brow. She 
turned slowly, and mounted the upward path alone. 
Had she driven him from her by that wicked, bold 
avowal ? It was not she who had spoken those hot 
words ; they had leaped from her heart to her lips 
with no volition on her part. Ah, he was afraid to 
face mamma. She smiled at this solution. He will 
come to-morrow, and I shall call him “ coward.” 

Two days, three days, four days. 


Mrs. Fulkerson* s Letter is Answered. 57 

No sign of existence, no word of explanation from 
David Duncan. 

That he was still in the little fishing village, down 
beyond the rocks, she could not doubt ; for he had 
come in a yacht with friends, and from her little 
white-curtained window up under the pointed gable 
she could see the yacht swinging idly at anchor in 
the bay. 

A week. No sign of existence, no word of 
explanation. 

Then, suddenly, she stood before her mother, and 
said with feverish haste : — 

“Mamma, when am I to go to New York? I 
want to go now, right off. Why wait for cold 
weather? Oh, papa,'’ deprecating the look of 
piteous surprise that was turned on her, “ don't 
oppose. I am so tired of this stupid place. I want 
to go. I want to see something of Edith’s sort of 
life. I want to find out if fine dresses and jewels 
really can make a woman happy.” 

There was an undercurrent of pain in the girl’s 
voice, a wistful sadness in her eyes, which, coupled 
with the sudden cessation of Mr. Duncan’s visits, 
made the colonel say to himself : — 

“She has refused him, for fear of her mother,” 
while Mrs. Markam was thinking, “ She has refused 
him on common-sense principles. So, after all, my 
training isn’t thrown away.” 

The day was appointed. Mrs. Markam decreed 
that it would be best for the colonel to see Georgie 
to her destination. “ For, you know,” she said, “ I 
could not possibly leave you in charge of the house 
by yourself. I might just as well leave an infant-in- 
the-arms in charge.” 

Colonel Markam never resented the strictures 
upon his capacity, perhaps because he felt the utter 
uselessness of it, perhaps because he admitted the 
justice of them. 

One more night only remained to Georgina at 


58 


Old Fulkersons Clerk, 


home. On the morrow, she would turn her face 
toward the great, bewildering city, where, dwelling 
in ease and serenity, she would find Edith, and, 
perhaps, forgetfulness. 

That night she sat long at the little gable end 
window, the curtain drawn back, staring in the 
direction of the spot where the yacht still lay. She 
could not see it now, for thick darkness closed the 
earth ; but she knew it was there yet, for the last 
glimmer of the sun had shot athwart it, and set the 
golden eaglet at the masthead ablaze. 

One word of explanation — that was all she asked, 
all she would accept. 

A whirring noise, as from something sent speeding 
from a hand in the garden there below. A soft thud 
on the carpet in the middle of the room. A white 
package done up in manifold wrappings of tissue 
paper lay before her. She seized it, and tore it 
open. Fold after fold of meaningless blank paper. 
At last, a tiny slip of folded paper — the precious 
heart of the package : — 

“ Forgive me. You are too dear to me. I left 
you because I dared not stay. Never doubt that 
you are dearer than any thing on earth. Never be- 
lieve it possible that you can ever be less so. My 
precious one, my lily-white love, good-by.’’ 

That was all. 

But it was enough to bring ease to that tender 
heart, hope to that young and buoyant spirit, and 
the light back to the clouded eye. 

. “ He. loves me. It will all come right. I believe 
in him. I will wait.” 

And she went to sleep that night, pondering over 
the sad chances that make a man fearful of courting 
a girl, unless he can lavish riches on her. ‘‘Ah, I 
knew it was mamma,” she said with a happy smilk 


Dr, Crocker Makes a Discovery. 


59 


CHAPTER VII. 

DR. CROCKER MAKES A DISCOVERY. 

Dr. Crocker, immersed in the routine of a fash- 
ionable physician’s life, or, rather, physician to a 
large circle of fashionable women, with ailments 
more or less imaginary, had yet time to indulge in 
the moderate exercise of a favorite hobby. 

This hobby of our doctor’s was of so desirable a 
sort that it is a pity every physician in the land 
should not mount a similar one, fall into line in the 
march of improvement, and ride it at and over the 
crying evil of all large cities — tenement houses. 

The doctor’s hobby was the amelioration of mat- 
ters in that vast and crowded species of human pens 
and death-traps where the miracle of life is sustained 
and endured under conditions that increase the mir- 
acle to a maximum and reduce their desirability to 
a minimum. These tenements, crowded, ill-venti- 
lated, death-breeding, were the subject of much 
asixiety, frequent visitations, and innumerable writ- 
ten protests on the part of this earnest man, who 
held that the higher one’s own position, and the 
more fortunate the accidents of one’s own surround- 
ings, the more imperative the obligation to better 
matters for the millions who have been trampled 
under the foot of adversity so long as to grow apa- 
thetically indifferent to their surroundings, patheti- 
cally patient under suffering. 

Now that Mistress Alice had demonstrated her 
ability to take care of the old man who had almost 
a father’s claim upon him, Dr. Crocker found himself 
at liberty oftener to inspect these dreary abodes of 
poverty and vice that appealed so powerfully to his 
sympathies. Fresh from one of these visitations, 
made toward noon of a day some weeks after Dandy 
had been the means of his placing his intercourse 


6o 


Old Fitlkersons Clerk. 


with his uncle’s strange nurse on a strict business 
footing, he found himself waiting for the descent of 
the elevator in a down-town newspaper office whose 
columns he proposed to use as a ventilator of his 
indignation at the existing state of affairs. 

The editor being a personal friend, Dr. Crocker 
proposed “stirring him up once more" on the sub- 
ject of over-crowded tenement houses. The subject, 
he contended, must be kept fully and constantly be- 
fore the public. Outside pressure was his only 
weapon of attack. He wanted to give this editor a 
description of the revolting scenes that had come 
that morning under his own observation. 

The elevator descended slowly, and he stood wait- 
ing to enter it for the ascent. As the door slid back, 
a young woman stepped to the threshold, started, 
and let fall her parasol. Perhaps but for the drop- 
ping of the parasol Dr. Crocker would not have 
observed her at all, although she was no ordinary- 
looking object. She had a slender, graceful form, 
whose rounded outlines received no adventitious aid 
from the plain green serge dress she wore. Her 
eyes, the most striking feature in her face, weue 
large, soft and gray. From beneath the small straw 
hat that she wore, soft fluffy blonde hair rippled to 
the roots. Dr. Crocker stooped to recover her par- 
asol for her. She received it without thanks, and 
hurried past him with nervous speed. 

“ Pretty, but ill-mannered," was the passing men- 
tal comment with which he entered the elevator and 
dismissed all thought of the incident. 

He was fortunate in finding his editorial friend in, 
and was soon plunged into the recital he had come 
there to disburden himself of. 

The editor smiled at Dr. Crocker’s enthusiasm, 
but promised to do his bidding, which was to insert 
a feeling “ leader " on the subject in the columns of 
his paper. 

“ But when ? asked the importunate philanthro- 


Dr. Crocker Makes a Discovery, 6i 

pist. Will you promise me the 'article shall be in 
the morning’s paper ?” 

“ Promise you ? No, sir. It’s bad enough to be 
badgered into indiscreet promises by pretty young 
women in distress, without burdening one’s con- 
science for fashionable doctors with fat purses. I 
am suffering at this moment from the effects of a 
rash promise that I would give a month’s salary to 
retract.” 

What has my request to do with pretty young 
women in distress? ” asked the doctor, not easily 
baffled of his desire. 

“Nothing, absolutely nothing. But just before 
you came in, I had committed myself to an under- 
taking unduly influenced by a pair of melting eyes, 
that will consume every leisure moment for days. 
By the way, I have an inspiration.” He leaned for- 
ward and took from his desk a bulky package. “ I 
will make you a conditional promise. You examine 
that manuscript for me, and I will write your 
leader. What do you say ? Come, is it a bargain ? ” 

“ I say it wouldn’t be exactly fair to the author, 
whoever he may be. Of course, he has his especial 
reasons for bringing it to you.” 

“ No ‘ he ’ about it. If it had been a he, I should 
have sent him to the right about with his manuscript 
in short order, but hanged if I did not find it utterly 
impossible to say no to that woman, when she asked 
me to read her story, and help her sell it. I’ve seen 
handsome women, but there’s a look in her eyes that 
goes straight to a fellow’s heart. No, your opinion 
would be just as valuable as mine. I suppose she 
came to me because her sister is in my employ. She 
is a type-writer, and does paper wrappers and such 
work.” 

Then the editor, who had been tugging with tooth 
and nail at the bewildering knots in the strings that 
secured the parcel, lowered his voice, and nodded 
toward an inner room where Ralph could see the 


62 


Old Fulkersofis Clerk, 


slim figure and bowed head of a girl who sat with 
her back to him, “Just like a woman,” said the 
editor between bites. “ Hope the story won’t prove 
knotty, too. Ah,” with a sigh, “ the last knot 
conquered. By George, that’s neat writing.” 

Dr. Crocker leaned forward with natural curiosity. 
There, in the editor’s lap, lay pages upon pages 
of writing in Mistress Alice’s peculiarly small and 
unmistakable handwriting. 

“ What is the story called ? ” Ralph asked, mask- 
ing his growing wonderment under legitimate curi- 
osity. 

“Set Apart;” the editor referred to the title 
page. “ Sounds a little soft, but she told me it was 
her first effort.” 

“ Told you ? Then you have seen the fair author- 
ess? I believe that is what they all are called.” 

“Seen her? yes. And if you had been five 
minutes sooner, you might have seen her, too. Let 
me add that she is worth looking at. She left just 
before you came in.” 

“ Was she dressed in green? ” Dr. Crocker asked, 
groping for some link which could possibly connect 
this work of Mistress Alice’s with the owner of a pair 
of startled eyes and the dropped parasol. 

“ Hanged if I can recollect. Some women make 
you forget their clothes. She is one of that sort. I 
believe,” dropping his voice again, “ that these sisters 
have seen better days. There is an air about my 
little paper clerk in yonder that quite makes me wish 
I could give her abetter chance.” 

Here a cough, short and dry, sounded from the 
other room. 

“ That’s she, now. I’m afraid she’s none too 
strong.” 

Dr. Crocker had possessed himself of the manu- 
script, and turning to chapter ten, discovered the 
marks of Dandy’s tiny teeth in the corner, the thick- 
ness of the sheets having prevented his tearing them. 


Dr. Crocker Makes a Discovery. 63 

There was no longer any roonv to doubt that this 
was the identical manuscript that had marred the 
pleasant relations between himself and his uncle’s 
nurse. 

“Interested already? ’’the editor asked, amused 
at the doctor’s absorbed demeanor. 

To which Ralph replied quite inconsequently, “ I 
believe editors are always in the secret of authorship. 
Who is your handsome contributor? ” 

The newspaper man referred to his address 
book. 

“ Mrs. Gregory. She gave me no address, she is 
to call again for my answer. Well, what about 
reading it for me ? ” 

“ Thanks, but I really could not ; 1 have neither 
time nor inclination for that sort of literature.” 

He laid the manuscript back on the desk, and 
rose to leave. Here was a mystery for him to 
solve ! 

“Oh! come now. There’s no use sneering. It 
may be very good as stories go. At least, I’m going 
to strain a point to find it so. She represents her- 
self as being very much in need of money.” 

“ I suppose they all make pretty much the same 
representations; don’t they?” Ralph was thinking 
in a mystified fashion of the possibility of this being 
Mistress Alice who was under discussion, and 
resentfully of her representing herself as in need of 
money. Was she not in weekly receipt of fifteen 
dollars, and all expenses paid ? He was astonished 
to find how distasteful it was to him, to associate 
her image with any sort of deception. 

“ Perhaps,” he said, pursuing the subject with 
strange eagerness, “ your pretty visitor is not the 
writer of all that neat manuscript. Maybe she is 
only the messenger for a busy author.” 

“ She claims to be the writer. And, by-the-way, 
here is pretty conclusive evidence.” He extended 
his open address book. “She wrote that herself, 


64 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


and I don’t believe in all New York City you can 
find two women to write exactly like that. It’s like 
copperplate.” 

There was indeed conclusive evidence. “ Mrs. 
Gregory ; ” line for line, the “ Gregory ” compared 
with the application Mistress Alice had put into 
writing on the first day of her coming to Park 
Avenue. Dr. Crocker took up his hat and cane 
without a word of comment. He was completely 
bewildered. 

“You will write that editorial for me, Fisher? And 
I say, through all our talk I’ve been hearing that 
girl cough. A physician’s ear is attuned to such in- 
terruptions. She needs attention.” 

“ I wish you would go in there, and tell her so 
then. It would come better from a doctor than 
from me. I have it.” 

“ Another inspiration ? ” 

“Yes. Go in there, and dictate to her the general 
headings of the argument you want me to make in 
that confounded editorial. I haven’t been quite sat- 
isfied about that girl myself ; but it was not for me 
to stop her from work.” 

Dr. Crocker laid his hat and cane down again. “ I 
think better of your last inspiration than of your 
first,” he said. 

“ Miss Mary, this way, if you please.” 

Mary Gregory, known as Mopsy to Alice alone, 
appeared on the threshold. She was pale and thin, 
almost to attenuation. Poor Mopsy! In the long 
lonely evenings at her boarding-house, there was no 
temptation to stop work. The click-clack of her 
type-writer helped fill the void left by Alice’s sweet 
voice. Sundays, ah ! what was not Sunday to them 
both now ? It was their one day together. 

“ You called, Mr. Fisher ? ” 

“Yes, I have a friend here — ” 

“ Never mind the name ? ” said Ralph hurriedly, 
from motives of his own. 


Dr. Crocker Makes a Discovery. 65 

/ 

— who would like you to take down in type a few 
ideas.” 

“ I am ready, sir.” 

Ralph followed her into the inner room, and as 
she held herself in readiness to write, he walked up 
and down the room with his hands behind his back. 
What had become of his ideas ? Where were his 
pet suggestions gone to ? Why was it that between 
him and what he would think of was thrust what he 
must think of? Mistress Alice, always Mistress 
Alice, and the cloud of mystery enveloping her! 
Fisher said this girl was her sister. He turned 
abruptly upon Mopsy, sitting there pale and 
patient : — 

“You are in no condition to be at work. You 
should go home.” 

“ I would rather not, sir. I would rather be here.” 

“ Rather not. Rather be at work, when you are 
sick enough to be in bed ?” 

“ It is nothing. I caught cold when it rained last. 
I am waiting, sir.” Ralph took a chair opposite her 
at the table. He laid his hand upon her hot, dry 
wrist : — 

“ My child, I am a physician. I know better than 
you do what condition you are in. You must go 
home.” 

“ It will be death to stay there all day long. It is 
hard enough to stand it evenings ; but then night 
comes, and I go to sleep.” 

“ It is not gay, then, with you at home ? Perhaps 
your family is small ? ” 

“ It consists of my own miserable self,” says 
Mopsy in a voice of concentrated wretchedness. “ I 
am happier here at work. Do not tell me I must 
give up.” 

“ You surely have some relatives ? A mother, a 
sister, or — ” 

“Yes, one sister, one dear sister, but she — ” 

“ But she ? " Ralph repeated almost eagerly. 


66 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


“ Is out at work.’’ 

“ What sort of work ? ” 

“ She’s a nurse.” 

“ Then she is the one you are in need of,” said 
Dr. Crocker, mentally adding selfishness to the long 
array of faults he was summing up against Mistress 
Alice. 

“ She does not know. She shall not, must not 
know, that I am not well. You are cruel. You 
came in here for me to use my type-writer, and you 
pry into my private affairs most unwarrantably. My 
time is Mr. Fisher’s.” 

“ Child, is it the money that stands in the way of 
your taking the rest you need ? ” He was not think- 
ing of the reproaches she had hurled at him ; he was 
thinking of the thin temples, and the sad eyes, and 
the parched lips, of the girl before him. 

Poor Mopsy ! It was new for any one to notice, 
or to care, whether she was pale or rosy, thin or fat, 
well or sick. Nobody cared but Alice, and on the 
Sundays, when she was at home, rest and happiness 
made such a difference that there wasn’t much to 
notice. 

“ Is it the money. Miss Gregory ? ” 

Yes and no. I could not do without the money, 
and if I could, I would not dare to stop to think of 
my loneliness. I should break down in earnest 
then.” 

“ Can you find no work more congenial, more re- 
munerative than this ? ” 

Mopsy ’s eyes flashed defiance at him. 

“ By what right do you presume to catechize me ?” 

“You were not born to this thing,” he said calmly. 
“You betray yourself. I beg pardon. I was actu- 
ated by motives of the sincerest concern, and pre- 
sumed on my profession to offer advice unasked.” 

“ I am an ingrate, and I beg your pardon.” 

Mopsy’s voice and face were full of sweet contri- 
tion. 


Ralph Undergoes Gradations of Feeling. 6/ 

Dr. Crocker was a foe to impulsive action. It was 
his habit to weigh the facts of any case so deliber- 
ately and impartially before taking action on it, that 
he had come to be regarded as a cold-blooded and 
calculating man by those who judged superficially, 
knowing nothing of the warm, generous heart 
within. 

He was baffled by these two women. He hated 
mystery of any sort. Whatever might be this girl’s 
history, she was a sufferer now, and, by right of it, 
his concern. But howto help her, he must consider 
more deliberately. He rose abruptly — 

“ Never mind the editorial now. My time is up. 
To-morrow I shall call for your aid.” Then he left. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

RALPH UNDERGOES GRADATIONS OF FEELING. 

The unpardonable sin in Dr. Crocker’s estimation 
was deceit. And it irritated him to think that he 
had been brought into close contact with it, not 
only through his own agency, but without detecting 
it. It mattered not what had driven Mistress Alice 
to the extremity of taking fifteen dollars a week as 
nurse. If she and the handsome woman against 
whom he had almost stumbled at the elevator 
in Fisher’s office, were one and the same person, 
she was practicing a most gross deception on his 
uncle, and must have some ulterior object of her own 
in applying herself so assiduously to the comfort of 
the sick man. 

For three months now, she had been ministering 
to his uncle’s comfort, and relieving the tedium 
of the old man’s life with a skillful hand and a patient 
gentleness that had won for her the respect and 
liking of the entire establishment. Individually, 


68 


Old Fulkerson s , Clerk. 


the doctor had found her a most interesting study. 
Her quaint, graceless form, the throat always wrapped 
about with a blue silk scarf, the rigid little gray 
curls coming far down on the forehead, the smoked 
glasses that gave such a weird look to the large 
eyes behind them — had always seemed strangely 
incongruous with the smooth roundness of her 
cheeks and the full redness of her lips. But his 
experience as a physician had brought him into con- 
tact with so many freaks of nature, that he had been 
content to accept Mistress Alice as a woman of 
more than ordinary intelligence, with a most excel- 
lent disposition, but decidedly queer looking. 

And here he was, all of a sudden, brought face to 
face with a mystery enshrouding her, and utterly 
powerless to decide whether there was any duty 
Involved in probing it, or not. 

By the time he reached the house in Park Avenue 
on his return home, he had come to the settled 
determination to keep his discovery, or rather his 
suspicions, to himself, at least until he had more to 
go on, reserving for himself the privilege of observ- 
ing Mistress Alice all the more closely, and of ques- 
tioning her, should the necessity for so doing arise. 

When a little later on, he entered his uncle’s room 
on his usual afternoon visit, he found her engaged 
in writing letters for Mr. Fulkerson. The invalid 
was leaning back in his chair, reading a letter she 
had just finished. His worn, thin face looked more 
placid by many degrees than had been its wont 
before the advent of an attendant whose quickness 
of perception and readiness of execution materially 
lessened his labor in dictating. 

“ Look at that, Ralph. She can beat me writing 
a business letter. And the writing, sir, it’s as clear 
as printing.” 

“ Mistress Alice writes admirably well,” Dr. Crocker 
said coldly, without touching the letter his uncle 
extended to him. “ It is a pity she should not have 


Ralph Undergoes Gradations of Feeling. 6g 

a wider literary scope for her talent than writing 
business letters from your dictation." 

Poor Allie ! Her lip quivered at the taunt. The 
hot blood flooded her cheeks. Would he go on and 
proclaim her an impostor, there and then, in the 
presence of the old man whose confidence she had 
won so slowly, whose friendship she began to prize 
so highly ? It was evident his own suspicions 
were aroused. What use would he make of 
them ? Deprive her of that precious fifteen a week? 

Ralph, leaning over the high back of his uncle’s 
chair, looked steadily down upon her, as with half- 
averted face and trembling fingers she addressed an 
envelope for the letter Mr. Fulkerson was reading, 
and carefully pressed the blotting paper upon it. 
Dainty neatness characterized her very slightest 
action. 

In such emergencies one forms resolutions 
promptly. Alice formed hers almost instantaneously. 
After all, she was doing no actual wrong. If the 
worst came to the worst, she would acknowledge 
who she was, how she came to be reduced to seek- 
ing this position, and why she had assumed the 
disguise of a middle-aged woman, knowing that her 
youth and good looks would close the door upon 
her. Inwardly fortified by the consciousness that 
her position was perfectly tenable, she flung off the 
momentary confusion that had overwhelmed her, 
and, with head a trifle more erect than usual, said in 
her most serene voice : — 

“ If you have no more letters for me to write, Mr. 
Fulkerson, I will get the backgammon board. You 
beat me roundly, yesterday, and I am not willing to 
stay beaten." 

Mr. Fulkerson chuckled. He enjoyed these daily 
combats with his quick-witted nurse. It was she 
who had suggested that his partial command of 
the left hand made this pastime possible. Alice 
loathed the sound of the rattling dice, but the 


70 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk, 


paralytic enjoyed it. She was paid to amuse him, 
not to please herself. 

“ Pluck ! Whatever her secret, she does not 
cringe. She knows that I suspect her. She is not 
going to confess voluntarily ; but when she does, it 
will be fearlessly.” 

Thus Dr. Crocker to himself, as he moved away 
from the chair, conscious of a sense of relief. He 
went into his office, and applied himself to the task 
of writing his piece on tenement houses, but he 
found that his thoughts vibrated pendulum-fashion 
between his uncle’s nurse and that pale girl down 
yonder in Fisher’s office. 

“ If they are sisters, they are reduced gentle- 
women cursed with the , false pride that makes 
them ashamed of the work they are compelled to 
do. But, by George, they do it well. Poor thing ! 
As for this one, it was cruel to stab her with an 
innuendo. As for the other one, if she stays in 
Fisher’s office, or any other office, two months 
longer, she will be a confirmed invalid. Confound 
it, I am afraid they are just of that grade of poor 
people the most difficult of any in the world to 
benefit. I may get snubbed for my pains, but I 
shall look into that girl’s case.” Having arrived at 
this conclusion, he brought all his mental energy to 
bear upon an argument in favor of better-ventilated, 
better-built, and more roomy lodgings for the very 
poor who came within his legitimate grasp as a 
physician and humanitarian, and were so much 
easier to handle than those who by some freak of 
fortune had come down in the world, bringing with 
them all the pride, and sensitiveness, and shrinking 
from publicity, that they were entitled to in their 
better days. “ That sort ” — Ralph mentally cata- 
logued Mistress Alice and the type-writer at Fisher’s 
as “ that sort”' — “have to be aided with as much 
diplomacy and secrecy as would circumvent a 
garrison.” 


Georgina s Points, 


71 


CHAPTER IX, 

GEORGINA’S POINTS. 

Mrs. Fulkerson and her sister Georgina met so 
much as strangers, after a separation of seven years, 
that each was able to regard the other from a 
critical point of view, perfectly irrespective of any 
natural bias toward favorable criticism. 

Colonel Markam remained in New York long 
enough only to place the younger daughter in the 
elder one’s keeping, with the fond words : — 

‘‘ I think she is nearly perfect, as she is, Edith. 
I should be sorry to have all the enthusiasm of her 
sweet, impulsive nature pruned away. Don’t seek 
to make a fashionable lady of her, daughter. Send 
her back to me, cured of what your mother calls 
‘ her silly attachments,’ but send her back to me 
unaltered, dear.” 

Mrs. Fulkerson smiled indulgently into her 
father’s warm, pleading face, then touching his 
furrowed cheek lightly with her jeweled hand : — 

“ Poor, dear old papa ! He has more sentiment 
in him now than all the females of his family put 
together.” 

The gentle old man rubbed his hands together 
apologetically : — 

“ Not at all, my dear, not at all. I’m not quite the 
manager your dear mother is, but her heart is in the 
right place. Oh, yes, Mrs. Markam’s heart is in the 
right place. She is ambitious for her daughters. 
Yes, my dear, I may say quite so. But it’s natural. 
Oh, yes, natural ! ” 

Georgina was standing in the bay-window of the 
great parlor, while this conversation was going on. 
Her heart was heavy within her, and she was trying 
to compose herself for the farewell words she must 
presently say to her father. She had been his con- 


72 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


stant companion now for seven years, and, oh, what 
would he do without her? How could he do with- 
out her at all ? The window was full of lovely- 
blooming plants that filled the room with sweetness 
and color, but Georgina plucked a flame-colored 
fresh geranium to atoms, unconscious of its destruc- 
tion. 

“ My sister is very beautiful,” she said to herself ; 
“ but it is the dai^zling beauty of an ice-floe. I do 
not believe her heart ever throbbed with pain. She 
looks upon life simply as a role to be played to a 
successful finale, with as much ease and grace as 
practice and study may insure. Ah, I could never, 
never talk to her about — about him. She would not 
understand. She would not believe that he had 
gone away from me, because he would not mar a 
brighter prospect. Brighter prospect ? Ah, my 
love, my love, all the brightness of my life was 
consumed in the flame of that first and last kiss! 
Edith would laugh at me for a sickly sentimentalist. 
There is such a scofflng look in her beautiful eyes. 
She would not understand.” 

And Mrs. Fulkerson was saying to her father, 
critically scanning the girlish figure in the bay-win- 
dow through gold-rimmed glasses which she did not 
need in the least : — 

“ So you think Georgina almost perfect ? What a 
dear, old-fashioned papa it is ! I see a good many 
things I should like to alter about the child. Her 
form is good, but she lacks style. I suppose her 
dressmaker is largely responsible for that, however. 
Again, she has rather a blunt, straightforward way 
of answering when spoken to. It’s a great mistake 
to be too honest in one’s utterances. At present she 
looks desperately bored, but we will change all that. 
It is quite time she was seeing a little of life. I 
shall make her the sensation of New York, this 
winter.” 

“For Heaven’s sake, no!” Colonel Markam 


Georgina s Points. 


73 


deprecated the idea with raised hands, and eyes so 
full of horror, that Mrs. Fulkerson laughed long and 
merrily. 

Georgina walked toward them from the flower- 
stand to ask : — 

“ Has papa perpetrated a joke ? ” 

“Yes, an immense one. He is alarmed lest I 
should make you the sensation of the season. 
Which, by the way, I can easily do, child ; for your 
style of beauty is something quite unique. IVe not 
seen such a combination of natural blonde hair with 
dark eyes and brows. And, if you only knew it, you 
have your fortune in your neck.” 

“ Georgie's not much of a singer, dear,” the colonel 
says anxiously. 

“ I did not say throat, you precious old stupid ; I 
mean that long, white, round neck, that looks like a 
marble pedestal for her pretty head. But II Pen- 
seroso is not good form for gay society, my pet ; it 
savors too much of reproach. You lack chic. We 
shall have to cultivate it. Fortunately this is only 
the beginning of the season. No one of any 
importance is in town yet.” 

All this while she was coolly scanning the blush- 
ing girl before her. It was a relief to Georgina that 
at that moment Edwards, Mr. Fulkerson’s man- 
servant, announced that his master would see Colo- 
nel Markam and his daughter. 

“ And now, dear, tell me what your first impress- 
ions of your brother-in-law are — my gentle 
liege ? ” 

Thus Mrs. Fulkerson, the interview over, and 
themselves back in the grand salon. Colonel Mark- 
am gave his opinion unasked : — 

“ He looks as if he had suffered a great deal, daugh- 
ter, both physically and mentally. He was a hale, 
handsome man when you married him. Poor Fulk- 
erson ! ” 

While Georgie said : — 


74 


Old Fulkerso7is Clerk. 


“ I think I shall like him, sister. His reception 
of me was very kind.” 

Edith elevated her handsome brows to their ut- 
most capacity : — 

“ To like him you will have to be very queer. I 
hope you are not queer, Georgina? ” 

“ Don’t you like him? ” the girl asked bluntly. 

“ Oh, I am his wife. There is a duty involved in 
my liking him. Moreover, I have pleasanter memo- 
ries of him. He was a very handsome man, as father 
says, when I married him, and is still a very gener- 
ous one.” 

“ He has a disappointed look,” said Georgina. 
“ But he was very kind to me, and I do not believe 
I shall be afraid of him.” 

“ Then your future is assured. I must confess I 
am horribly afraid of him. But then, Ralph says I 
always see him at his worst. It enrages him for 
people to show that they are afraid of him ; but I 
can’t help it.” 

“ Dr. Crocker’s presence must be a source of in- 
finite comfort to you, my dear, under this sad afflic- 
tion,” her father said mildly. 

For a moment Mrs. Fulkerson forgot her airy 
levity. Was Ralph Crocker’s presence a source of 
infinite comfort ? Rather was it not the last drop of 
gall in a cup already brimming with bitterness? Did 
she not always, in his presence, stand convicted of 
utter failure in every thing that went to the making 
of a womanly woman ? Did she not always leave 
that presence with tormenting visions of what she 
might have been, and done, floating before 
her ? 

Dandy lay curled in a knot on his cushion at her 
feet. She stooped and passed a jeweled hand caress- 
ingly over his head and back : — 

“ No. I have but one source of ‘ infinite comfort’ 
in this world,” she said, with her rippling laugh, 
“ and here it lies. So you see, Georgina, how few 


Georgina s Points. 


75 


rivals in my affections you will have to displace in 
order to reign supreme.” 

“ I doubt my ability to displace yourpug,” Georgie 
answered with blunt sarcasm, glanced coldly down 
on the luxurious little beast at her sister’s feet, and 
walked back to the flowers in the window. 

Colonel Markam coughed a little uneasily. He 
hoped the dears were not going to be disagreeable 
to each other. Muttering something about making 
his adieux to Mr. Fulkerson, the old soldier, who 
had never been able to face the battery of a woman’s 
angry eyes, fled ignominiously. 

Mrs. Fulkerson swept noiselessly across the long 
parlor, and laid a caressing arm about her sister’s 
slim waist : — 

“ My pretty child, you are shocked, disgusted per- 
haps. You are love-sick now. You fancy that the 
presence of one man is absolutely essential to your 
welfare. Wait until you learn how little there is in 
men’s vows and wildest protestations. Wait until 
you learn that a woman’s heart is simply a plaything 
of which men soon tire. Wait until you learn that, if 
you would hold your own in the fight against fate, 
you must measure as it is measured unto you. 
Wait until you learn that with all your getting you 
must get absolute indifference, the truest wisdom, 
after which you will recognize in me, not the monster 
of iniquity your too honest eyes pronounce me at this 
moment, but simply a sensible woman. That is all.” 

“ Have you learned all that, my sister?” 

Georgina raised her eyes to meet Mrs. Fulkerson’s 
without altering her position. Her head was thrown 
slightly back, and an earnest, questioning look illu- 
mined the girl’s pale, proud face. 

“ Exquisite ! ” said Mrs. Fulkerson, with irrelevant 
enthusiasm. ‘‘ I shall make Sarony take you in just 
that attitude. Child, half of male New York shall be 
at your feet this winter, if you will only do my 
bidding.” 


76 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


** What is your bidding ? asked the girl, flushing 
and smiling under the genuine tribute to her beauty. 

“ Oh, I shall have many injunctions to lay upon 
you. The first one is, you must learn to veil the 
horror in those pretty eyes that you regard me with. 
Tm not half so bad as you evidently think I am. 
Only, my pet, I do not propose that you shall pose 
before New York society as a country lassie who is 
wearing the willow for a recreant lover.’' 

Georgina’s head was proudly erect as she an- 
swered — 

‘‘Prove to me that David Duncan is unworthy of 
my most unquestioning love, my most patient trust, 
and you shall have no occasion to call me love-sick. 
He loves me as I love him. He knows mamma. He 
knows her ambitions for me. He is proud. He is 
poor. That tells the whole story. I shall never 
wear the willow for any man.” 

“So. That is well. You do not lack fire. I have 
better material to work upon than I had thought 
for. And now, my dear, one of my first injunctions 
is that you should cultivate your brother-in-law, my 
gentle liege, with all the assiduity you can evolve.” 

“ That I shall not in the least object to doing. I 
am sure we will be good friends. Perhaps I may 
even come to supplant that quaint Mistress Alice in 
his good graces.” 

“Never hope to do that,” said Edith, laughing 
carelessly, as with her long, white fingers she experi- 
mented on the fluffy little curls about Georgie’s 
brows. “ Mistress Alice has gained a remarkable 
hold on him, at which no one rejoices more sincerely 
than I do. He says he likes her, because she is too 
ugly to have any vanity, and too sensible to lament 
over her ugliness ; moreover, it is not my purpose 
to have you installed as under nurse, nor to have 
Mr. Fulkerson monopolize you. He is first with 
every body in the house, excepting Dandy there. I 
believe Dandy does rank me first. But if he likes 


Mopsy Finds a Friend. 


77 


you — your brother-in-law I mean — he will be most 
lavish. Now, then, don’t let that furious look come 
into your eyes again. It’s positively ruinous in its 
effects. Now, then, here comes poor papa to say 
good-by. I shall leave you to take your tearful fare- 
well of him alone, dear ; I always avoid the sight of 
grief I can not mitigate.” 

With that slight mocking laugh of hers, which 
had so much of music in it and so little of mirth, 
Mrs. Fulkerson swept out of the room just as 
Georgina flung herself into her father’s arms in child- 
ish abandon. 

“ Papa,” she said finally, wiping her eyes and 
raising them pleadingly to his face, “ I want you 
— if you ever — see him — to tell him that — I — 
believe in him — and trust him — and wait for him. 
Won’t you, dear? ” 

And that foolish, fond, worldly-unwise Colonel 
Markam promised solemnly to do his darling’s 
bidding. 


CHAPTER X. 

MOPSY FINDS A FRIEND. 

Dr. Crocker was back in his friend Fisher’s edi- 
torial rooms, promptly, the next day, with the 
article on tenement houses in his hand, but alto- 
gether a different errand in his mind. 

Fisher,” he said, lowering his voice and casting 
a glance toward the inner room, “ I’ve not been able 
to get your pale-faced type-writer out of my mind 
since I was here before,” 


78 Old Fulkerson s Clerk, 

You needn’t lower your voice,” said the editor; 
the poor little thing is not here to-day.” 

“ Not here ? Down ? ” 

I can’t tell you. All I know is, she is missing 
from her desk.” 

“ Do you know any thing about that girl, Fisher.” 

“ Nothing whatever. I advertised for someone 
to address wrappers, and she answered. I don’t 
even know any other name for her than Miss Mary.” 

“ Perhaps some of the other girls do,” said Dr. 
Crocker, with that persistency for which he was 
noted. “ That girl was sick enough, yesterday, to 
need a doctor. I don’t suppose you are a source of 
princely revenue to her.” 

The editor laughed. “ No, poor little thing, not 
unless six dollars a week is princely. However, I pay 
her the full value of the work she does for me.” 

“ I don’t in the least doubt that. But call up one 
of your girls, will you ? ” 

One of the girls was called. 

She didn’t know much about Miss Mary, didn’t 
like her much, any way. She was too stiff and 
stuck up. Yes, she knew where she lived, for they 
generally took the same line of cars to go home. 
And she’d often seen Miss Mary get out at 456 
First Avenue. No, she didn’t know any other name 
for her, she’d never heard her called any thing but 
Miss Mary.” 

“ I suppose my foreman can tell you, Crocker,” 
said the editor. 

“ I don’t see that it matters much. I’ve a patient 
to see in that direction, and the number of the house 
is address enough.” 

Mr. Fisher had his doubts as to any of Dr. 
Crocker’s fashionable patients living upon the very 
unfashionable avenue mentioned ; but it was not 
for him to mar his friend’s benevolent intentions. 

So Dr. Crocker was soon back in his buggy, and 
after giving directions to his driver to proceed to 


Mopsy Finds a Fyiend. 


79 


No. 456 First Avenue, he leaned thoughtfully back 
against the cushions, wondering if he were doing a 
rational or a foolishly quixotic thing. 

Arrived at No. 456, he rang at the door, which was 
opened by Mrs. Grimm herself, who stood trans- 
fixed with admiring awe before the “ handsome 
gentleman with the black silk hat, and gloves, and 
all,” as she afterward described Ralph to her 
daughter. 

“ This is the boarding house of Mrs. — ” . 

“ Grimm, sir,” with polite briskness. 

“ I have come — I was sent — I am a doctor.” 

“ Oh, ah, and it’s poor Miss Mary that you’ve 
come to see ? ” 

“ Yes,” said the doctor, entering without any more 
ado, and depositing his hat and gloves on the rack in 
the dingy little hall. 

“ Has she had any attention yet, Mrs. Grimm ? ” 

“None but what I’ve given her myself, sir; not 
but that she don’t need better, the poor dear.” 

“ Show me up, please.” 

He followed Mrs. Grimm in her toilsome ascent 
to the little fourth-story room, and felt absurdly ner- 
vous when she threw open the door, said in a matter- 
of-course voice, “ Miss Mary, here’s your doctor,” 
and vanished, leaving him alone with the astonished 
patient, who sat bolt upright on the stiff little re- 
cliner, and fixed a pair of flashing eyes upon him. Her 
cheeks were flushed with fever, and her parted lips 
were fiery-red from the same cause. 

Dr. Crocker coolly placed a chair by the recliner, 
seated himself, and said : — 

“ You are thinking I have taken a most unwar- 
rantable liberty, and are at this moment in your 
heart calling me an officious meddler. Mr. Fisher, 
whom I have just left, is kind enough to have great 
confidence in me as a doctor. He felt con- 
cerned about you, and procured your address for 
me,” 


8o 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


Mopsy was entirely too sick to notice the vague 
indistinctness of this explanation. Her head was 
dizzy from want of sleep, and weakness. She 
leaned back against the cushions wearily. 

“ You mean to be kind, but you are making a mis- 
take.” 

“ Not in thinking that you need attention.” 

“No, but— ” 

“ You have your family physician, and I am intrud- 
ing, is that it ? ” 

“ No, oh, no.” 

“ Then, my dear young lady, see in me, I entreat 
you, nothing but a professional man, who is anxious 
to administer the dose of prevention.” 

Mopsy’s shining eyes filled with the tears she 
would not shed. 

“ In the first place,” said Ralph briskly, “ you 
must let your family know that you need some of 
them with you.” 

“ I have no family.” 

“ None? ” 

“ Only a sister, and she — she must stay where she 
is. I do not want her.” 

Poor Mopsy ! Nothing could possibly have been 
further from her wishes than to say or do any thing 
that would cast a reflection upon Alice. How could 
she guess that this friend of Mr. Fisher’s, whose 
name she was totally ignorant of, was the Dr. Crocker 
of Park Avenue — the man whose advertisement had 
taken Allie away from her ? Meanwhile Dr. Crocker 
was thinking : — 

“ Something wrong. If Mistress Alice is really 
this poor child’s sister, it is evident that she would 
rather suffer alone than have her here. ” 

“ Pretty independent talk for a young, lady who 
can hardly raise her hand to her head,” he said, 
smiling at her reassuringly ; “ but after all, if you 
are docile and obedient, there’s not much probabil- 
ity of a severe attack. I suppose you share the 


Mopsy Finds a Friend. 8i 

usual prejudices of ladies against being cared for in 
a hospital.” 

Mopsy shuddered. Presently she opened her 
eyes to say : — 

“What is the matter with me, doctor? Why am 
I sick at all ? ” 

He glanced around the little room without 
answering. 

“ I have in my mind’s eye,” he said, “ a pretty 
room with a bright, polished floor, with pictures on 
the walls, with the cozy belongings of a home-room 
scattered about, with a window looking out over a 
garden all abloom with roses of Sharon, nasturtiums, 
and morning glories, and its presiding deity a soft 
voiced, white-handed nurse that makes physic a 
positive luxury. If I were taken sick to-morrow, I 
would have myself taken there. But there are peo- 
ple who prefer to surround themselves with the 
gloom of the tomb in advance.” 

“ It is lonely and gloomy here, but — but I have 
my worm eaten prejudices, doctor, and they must 
be respected.” 

“ This being the case, I will simply write you out 
a prescription, which, perhaps, if your landlady 
wanders up here, about midnight, she may attend 
to for you. Perhaps you know how. And should 
you in the meantime suffer for thirst, do you hap- 
pen to have a bell-rope near ? I believe it is not 
usual for these fourth-story rooms to possess such 
luxuries.” 

Thus adroitly putting the picture of the bright 
hospital-room in close juxtaposition with the room 
that was positively loathsome to Mopsy, now that 
she was alone in it, Ralph pretended to be very busy 
with the prescription. 

“ Doctor? ” 

“Well, Miss Mary?” His voice was full of 
respectful kindness. 

“ I will go, but — ” 


82 


Old Fulkersoris Clerk. 


Well?” 

“ Allie ! ” 

“ Allie ? Your sister, I presume? ” 

“ Yes. I must write to her. And then — ” 

My dear child, I thought you would be sensible. 
I will leave you now ; but if a sweet little woman 
with a white muslin cap on top of some very wavy 
brown hair, calls for Miss Mary in a carriage, about 
an hour from now, she will find her ready to go with 
her, will she not? You need not be afraid. And my 
word for it, you will never regret it.” 

“You have not told me yet what is the matter 
with me.” 

‘^Nothing, absolutely nothing, but nervous pros- 
tration brought on by depression of spirits, loneli- 
ness, gloomy retrospection, and despondency con- 
cerning the future. Have I diagnosed your case 
correctly?” He smiled in answer to the look of 
puzzled surprise that overspread her face. 

“ As correctly as if some one had betrayed me to 
you. 

“ Some one did. You did yourself, yesterday, at 
Fisher’s. But we’ll be all right now, in a week or 
two.” 

He was standing up, with his hat in his hand. 

“ You will be there — at the — hospital ? ” 

“ No, but you will be in better hands, far better 
than mine.” 

“ I do not even know the name of my friend.” 

“ Nor I the name of my patient. What matters 
it, if you get strong and rosy through the intermed- 
dling of a nameless doctor? ” 

“But you are not nameless to others. As for your 
patient, my name is Mary Gregory.” 

“ Gregory? It must be so,” Ralph said to himself, 
then aloud : — 

“ You have not told me yet. Miss Gregory, that I 
am forgiven for my intrusion. There was no time 
to stand on ceremony. I thought I understood your 


Mopsy Finds d Friend, 


83 


case better than you did. If it is necessary for you 
to think of your new friend by name, Dr. Samuels 
will do, will it not ? ” 

Which evasion Dr. Crocker reconciled to himself 
on the score that in Bayonne, where there had been 
another Dr. Crocker, his father’s brother, he had 
been called Dr. Samuels from his middle name. 

And so it came about that on the Sunday follow- 
ing, Alice turned her steps toward the hospital, 
instead of the stuffy little room at Mrs. Grimm’s, 
where she found Mopsy in a bright, airy room, with 
the last Harper s Monthly on her lap, and a restful 
look on her sweet, pale face. 

“ Tell me all about it,” said Alice, sitting by her 
and holding her hand. “ It was cruel, Mopsy, not 
to have let me know.” 

“ I did not know it myself, dear. I knew it was a 
drag to get up in the morning, and a drag to go to 
the office, and, oh ! well, a drag at every turn. But 
as for nervous prostration, I thought that was a com- 
plaint belonging exclusively to fashionable ladies 
with time to indulge in imaginary maladies. But 
that is what Dr. Samuels calls my trouble. You 
know, Allie, I thought I was getting lazy, and gave 
myself some terrible scoldings, before I broke down.” 

“Poor dear! Poor, precious Mopsy! Oh, it is 
hard not to curse Dennis Davenport in my heart.” 

Mopsy laid a white hand over the impetuous lips. 

“ Let me tell you about my doctor-friend.” 

“ Yes, do.” 

Then the sick girl gave Alice a wordy description, 
comprising every thing that had been said on either 
side, winding up with a description of her doctor’s 
looks. 

“And his name is Samuels?” 

“ Yes, Dr. Samuels.” 

“ He is a friend of your employer ? ” 

“Yes. Mr. Fisher sent him to look after me. 
Could any thing be kinder?” 


84 


Old Fulkerson^ s Clerk. 


“ Nothing/' said Alice, marveling over the descrip- 
tion of this doctor-friend of Mopsy’s, which fitted 
so accurately a doctor she knew. 


CHAPTER XL 

AN OLD man’s confession. 


From simple nurse and reader to the paralytic in 
Park Avenue, Alice Gregory came within the course 
of six months to be more of a private secretary and 
confidential correspondent than any thing else. 

“ There are two people who might fill this place 
more naturally than yourself, Mistress Alice,” he 
had said, one day, pausing in the middle of a sen- 
tence he was dictating, “ and perhaps you wonder 
why they don’t.” 

“ I never trouble myself to wonder about other 
people’s affairs,” she answered with that ready cool- 
ness that gave such a stamp of genuineness to every 
thing she said. “ My own are in such a snarl that 
all my surplus energy is expended in that direction. 
Moreover, I can readily see why neither Dr. Crocker 
nor Mrs. Fulkerson, who are, of course, the two per- 
sons you mean, could be quite as satisfactory as a 
paid amanuensis. The doctor for want of time, and 
Mrs. Fulkerson — ” 

“Well? Mrs. Fulkerson, because ? ” the old man 
said, curious to know how she had meant to finish 
that sentence. 

“ Because you are too generous to pin her down 
to such drudgery. You know it is drudgery,” Alice 
continued, placidly dipping- her pen in the ink, and 
holding it in readiness to resume writing. “But 


An Old Man* s Confession. 

then, I am thankful enough to obtain the price of 
that drudgery.” 

“ Begad ! One is sure of the truth from you, if 
one never gets it from any other source,” said the 
old man, smiling grimly as he leaned his head back, 
closed his eyes, and finished the dictation of the 
letter. 

His afternoon mail was brought in just then. He 
glanced at the superscriptions and flung them into 
her lap. 

“ Read them. Mistress Alice. Fm not afraid of 
any secrets of mine falling into your hands. They 
are all business letters, but one, and that’s a begging 
one, I can tell them from the outside.” 

Alice had by this time neatly Opened each en- 
velope with a knife, and was waiting to give him the 
benefit of their contents. Several ordinary business 
communications were read, commented upon, and 
laid aside for future consideration ; others were 
promptly consigned to the waste basket. There 
remained but one unread. 

“This one,” said Alice, as she gazed at the 
cramped, almost unreadable, scrawl, “ I have left for 
the last. It is evidently the production of an un- 
educated person.” 

“ Some beggar. I used to get them by the bushel, 
when I was down town.” 

The letter began in so startling a fashion that 
Alice had mastered the gist of the contents in the 
silent reading of its first sentence she always gave 
to unfamiliar writing. 

“This one you had best read yourself,” she said 
in a voice chilled with contempt, laying the letter 
on his lap, then rpse to leave the room. 

Mr. Fulkerson glanced at the signature, and then, 
in a voice of such concentrated passion as Alice in 
her six months of familiar intercourse with him had 
never heard, uttered the one word : — 

“ Stop ! ” 


86 


Old Fulkersons Clerk, 


She stopped with her hand on the door-knob, and 
her head raised imperiously : — 

“Well, sir?” 

It was a Roland for his Oliver, her hauteur for his 
passion. 

“ You will come back, if you please, Mistress Alice. 
You will take your seat, and you will read this letter 
word for word.” 

“ How do you know that I will ? ” she asked 
defiantly. 

“ Because,” he said in a voice suddenly dropped 
from passion to pathos, “ I do not believe you will 
care to plant one more thorn in the crown already 
lacerating me.” 

She was back by his side in a second. After all, 
was there not a bond between her and this old man 
that ought to make her infinitely patient with him ? 
Had she not, unknowingly, it is true, reveled in 
luxury procured, by money stolen from him ? Had 
not the same hand wrecked them both? 

“I’ve long been trying to bring myself to the 
point of dictating a letter to the writer of this one,” 
he said, calming himself by a visible effort. “ I knew 
it would have to be done, sooner or later. These 
poor helpless hands of mine are not equal to penning 
any thing that touches upon the nervous system 
ever so remotely. I could not bring myself to 
dictate it to Ralph or Edith. To you, I am nothing 
but an old man who pays you fifteen dollars a week. 
What if he does give you the right to despise him ? 
You are not paid to respect him.” 

“ You do both yourself and me cruel injustice by 
such talk, Mr. Fulkerson. I am sorry you see in 
me only the recipient of your moi^y. I am sure, I 
have seen in you more than its giver.” 

“Well, well. Let that pass. Mistress Alice. 
After you’ve read that letter and written my 
answer to it, perhaps you will not care to stay longer 
under the roof of such a reprobate. I don’t profess 


An Old Man's Confession, 


87 


to be a saint, and perhaps when I was a boy I 
sowed a boy's share of wild oats ; but I can say with 
a clear conscience that I have tried to right every 
one I ever wronged. And, by Heaven, I’ve been 
more sinned against than sinning. But read, read.” 

He waved his hand impatiently toward the open 
letter. Alice read aloud : — 

“ Where is my child ? Where is our son ? So 
long as I heard tidings of him, and knew that he 
was safe in your keeping, I could keep quiet. For 
five years now nothing has come to tell me he is 
doing well. I’ve left the old country, and come 
back to New York. I’ve worn myself out trying to 
hear news of my bonny boy. People laugh in my 
face when I talk about him. Some say, ‘ Oh, that 
was old Fulkerson’s clerk; he’s disappeared long 
ago.’ Some say, ‘Oh, I remember him, a handsome 
scamp, that stole some twenty or thirty thousand 
dollars from his employer, and stepped over into 
Canada.’ I know they lie. My Dennis never could 
have turned out a rascal. Some tell me he was a 
married man ; married rich. But nobody can tell 
me where to find his wife. Some say she’s gone 
over to Canada with him and is helping him to spend 
old Fulkerson’s money. I’m getting old, Telfair, 
and I’m not long for this world ; but I’d die easier, 
if I could know my boy was doing well. I can not 
come and say all this to you, for reason of that 
awful vow I gave never to come into your presence 
again. And I don’t want to pester Dennie. I 
know I wouldn’t do him much credit. I only want 
to know what’s become of him. If you’ll answer 
me this at Chatham Place Hotel, I’ll get it, if you 
direct it to Mrs.^argaret Green. It’s a poor, mean 
place for Dennie’s mother to put up at ; but then, 
nobody knows.” 

Alice read this strange document to its pathetic 
close, and in the reading it gained by being stripped 
of its grammatical and orthographical errors. A pro- 


^8 


Old Fulkerson^ s Clerk, 


found silence fell upon the room, which rendered 
audible the hard, labored breathing of the old man 
in the chair. Alice's agitation was scarcely less 
great, though perhaps under better control. The 
chain that bound her to this strange old man had 
suddenly been welded yet stronger. This letter 
touched her even more nearly than it did him. 

“ Well ? ” she said when she was quite sure of her 
voice. 

“ I must give you a bit of autobiography first. 
Mistress Alice ; then you can word your answer 
better. And then, perhaps," he added slowly and 
bitterly, “ you will go away and leave me to the 
mercy of any clumsy creature who rnay chance to 
need your wages." 

Alice laid her hand on the stiff, helpless arm 
nearest her : — 

“ Trust me. I shall not leave you. I pity you, 
and I am your friend." 

A surprised, grateful look rested on his face for 
half a second, then the old man with half-averted 
face told this story ; — ■ 

“ In my early youth. Mistress Alice, I committed 
a piece of folly from the fruits of which I have suf- 
fered all my life. I fell in love with the pretty 
daughter of a woman with whom I boarded. My 
advances were met more than half way. Marriage 
with her was no part of my calculations. I was am- 
bitious of wealth, and did not propose hampering 
myself with a family early in life, even if bold, impru- 
dent Amy Davenport had gained twice the hold 
Upon me she had, I never deceived her into think- 
ing marriage would be the sequel to our dalliance. 
I went away from her, moved to a different State to 
free myself from the entanglement. She came to 
me after a while with an infant, our son, in her arms. 
I have never let her want for any thing. I told her, 
when the boy was able to go to school, I should 
take charge of him. He would visit her; but he 


An Old Man s Confession. " 89 

was never to know the claim he had on me. When 
he was ready to go into business, I should take 
charge of him, and she was to give him up. On her 
binding herself to thes£ conditions, she was to be 
kept above want, and Dennis was to have a fair 
start in life. She kept good faith with me, and I 
with her. After giving the boy a good education, I 
took him into my employment. No one ever knew 
why it was that when old Fulkerson’s clerk turned 
out to be such a scoundrel, it went so hard with the 
old man. In spite of myself I had come to feel a 
father’s pride and fondness for the boy. He never 
knew of the tie between us. I never placed any 
embargo on his association with his mother. But 
she, when her boy was getting to be a fine young 
man about town, voluntarily expatriated herself, 
going to live with an aunt in Ireland, lest her son’s 
low origin might leak out, and damage his prospects. 
She ” — pointing to the letter — “ alludes to a wife. I 
did not know Davenport had one. If he had, God 
help the poor creature. But then, perhaps — who 
knows? — her extravagances may have been at the 
bottom of Dennis’s defalcations, and no doubt she 
is helping him at this moment spend my thirty thou- 
sand dollars in Canada.” 

“All women are not so reckless,” said Alice, bend- 
ing over her writing materials to hide her starting 
tears and flushing cheeks. “ Perhaps she, too, was 
betrayed and deceived as you were.” 

“ Perhaps. But, by heaven ! should that be so, I 
wish I could find and comfort and help her.” 

“ Let us write the letter now,” said Mistress Alice, 
hastily, “ before we are interrupted. I thank you 
for the fullness of your confidence. You shall never 
regret it.” 

“ Yes, write. Tell her it grieves me not to be able 
to give her better news of her son. Tell her that he 
deceived and left me. Tell her I do not even know 
his whereabouts. Then, wait ” — with the left hand, 


90 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


of which he had partial use, Mr. Fulkerson filled out 
a check from the bank-book at his side, tore it from 
the stub, and handed it to Mistress Alice — “ tell her 
I send her that as part payment in advance, if she 
will find out, without injury to any one, if Dennis 
Davenport left a wife in this city.” 

Alice held the check in a trembling hand. 

“ Oh, sir, why trouble yourself to that extent ? 
What good could possibly come of the knowledge? 
If she is the wrong sort of woman, she is helping 
Dennis Davenport enjoy his ill-gotten gains. If she 
is not, why, then let her hide her shame in peace.” 

“ Perhaps you are right,” said the old man, 
thoughtfully. “ Send the check, and leave out the 
conditions.” 

Alice sealed the letter and held it in her 
hand : — 

“ This is not to be dropped into the hall- 
box ? ” 

“ No. Perhaps it would be best — ” he stopped. 

“ I know. You would like me to deliver this at 
the hotel in person.” 

“ My good creature, you divine my most 
troubled thoughts. It would be good, if you 
and — ” 

A rustling of silk and muslin, and two bright 
objects swept into the obscurity of the sick- 
room. 

Mrs. Fulkerson radiant in lavender silk, lace and 
diamonds, leading Georgina, who drew back with 
evident reluctance : — 

‘‘ I wanted you to see her, Mr. Fulkerson, before 
I take her out to dine at the Rothsays’. Isn’t she 
exquisite ? ” 

Georgina stooped impulsively, and printed a kiss 
on her brother-in-law’s furrowed forehead. 

“ It is so wicked of us to be enjoying ourselves, 
with you mewed up in this sick-room all the 
time,” 


An Old Mans Confession. ' 91 

Mr. Fulkerson’s eye rested with kindly interest 
on the fresh young face so close to his. She 
certainly looked lovely, tricked out in amber bro- 
cade and satin, with a cascade of costly lace falling 
about her long, white neck and slender wrists. 

“ My dear, I should be sorry to have the shadow 
of my affliction envelop you, too. No, no ; your 
sister is right in making your visit to this dull 
house as bright as possible. Enjoy the sunshine 
while it lasts, child, while it lasts.” 

His glance grew colder and sadder as it rested on 
his wife’s radiant apparel. It was a rare thing for 
the bitter disappointment that filled this stern old 
man’s heart, to find vent in commonplace reproach. 
Edith was not all she might have been to him. 
But he did not crave attentions that came simply 
from a sense of duty. He had been much more 
placid under suffering, since Mistress Alice had been 
his attendant. He was not kept in a perpetual 
state of irritation by careless indifference or stupid 
zeal. It saddened him, the utter apathy he felt 
concerning his handsome wife’s absence or presence. 
It was well for her, he thought, to have this pure, 
sweet girl to care for and watch over. It would 
give her a legitimate excuse for indulgence in those 
social delights which were her life. Perhaps, 
coming in at the very moment when his mind was 
full of that youthful folly of his own, which partook 
so nearly of the nature of a wrong done her — 
although it had all come to pass long before they 
had known each other — his feelings were tinged 
with remorse, which impelled him to offer her an 
unexpected pleasure : — 

“ My dear, would it not be well for you to give 
your sister an entertainment in your own house ? 
Would it not enable you to introduce her into 
society more readily? It is not as if my affliction 
were a temporary thing. Ralph could supply my 
place as host. But you must do it handsomely, or 


92 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


not at all. Hey, Georgia, what do you say to a ball 
of your own ? ” 

“ I say that you are very, very good to me, but 
that I do not want it at — " 

“And I say you are a silly child, and only talk 
that way for fear of giving a little trouble. She 
does want it, Telfair, and I am very much obliged 
to you for both of us. I’ve been dying to show my 
beautiful new parlor furniture to some one who 
hasn’t half as good.” She let her small gloved, hand 
rest caressingly on his shoulder as she stooped to 
whisper, “ I’m trying to wean the child from an 
adventurer in Canada. Her ball will give her some- 
thing to think of.” 

Guessing rather than hearing what her sister was 
saying, Georgina glided out of the room, and was 
seated in the carriage, where Edith joined her. And 
as she settled herself upon the cushions with many 
a silken rustle, Edith laughed in that little scoffing 
fashion of hers : 

“ That kiss of yours was a good investment, my 
dear. You deserve a ball for being such a little 
diplomat.” 

Georgina flushed angrily, but said nothing. Why 
should she be perpetually defending herself against 
the sepin-pricks, when the great dull pain at her heart 
never for a moment allowed itself to be forgotten ? 

Alice saw the brilliant equipage roll by the win- 
dow on its way down the avenue as she was prepar- 
ing for her ride in the crowded, dusty surface cars 
toward Chatham Place. If an envious sigh fluttered 
over her lips, was she so very much to blame 1 


Fresh Suspicions, 


93 


CHAPTER XII. 

FRESH SUSPICIONS. 

As she passed the consulting room on her way to do 
Mr. Fulkerson’s errand, Alice stopped to ask of Dr. 
Crocker through the open door : — 

Do you dine out with the ladies to-day, doctor ?” 

Ralph swung slowly around in his office chair to 
answer, “ No.” 

A certain tremulousness in her voice attracted his 
quick attention. He got up and came toward her 
to say in his kindest voice : — 

“You are not well. Mistress Alice. Does my 
uncle overtax you ? ” 

“ No, oh, no, he is goodness itself to me. I only 
wanted to say, if you were not going out with the 
ladies, perhaps you will not mind assuming my duties 
this afternoon. I don’t like to leave him to James 
alone. He has been very much annoyed to-day.” 

She was plainly not her usual coherent self. 

“You are not well. You keep your own troubles 
to yourself, and shut out all possibility of help and 
sympathy. Is this right. Mistress Alice ? ” 

He was standing near her, now, looking kindly 
down into her face, wishing she would open her lips 
and clear away the fogs of mystery that were envel- 
oping her and annoying him. But the closed lips 
only quivered, as he had made them quiver once 
before. She answered nervously : — 

“ There are some troubles that must be borne 
alone. No one can help me.” 

She drew down her veil, and turned away from 
him. He stood for a moment, gazing after the 
slowly-moving, graceless form. “ Pretty effectually 
disguised,” he said, smiling at the contrast between 
that shapeless gray back and the trim form he had 
encountered at Mr. Fisher’s elevator. 


94 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


“ By the way,” with a sudden angry flash in his 
eyes, “ her solicitude about leaving Uncle Telfair to 
James is but a ruse to keep me in-doors. She does 
not care to risk a second meeting at the office. Bah ! 
why should I worry over such a bundle of deceit 
and subterfuge?” He ground his heel savagely into 
the rug on which he was standing. After all, weren’t 
Mrs. Fulkerson and the pretty Georgina as good 
sort of women as this? They made no pretensions. 
They were simply triflers, who never gave utterance 
to a sentiment above a ribbon or a diamond. This 
one did. He had heard sentiments issue from those 
quiet lips of Mistress Alice’s that had made him 
yield involuntary tribute to a great soul enshrined 
in an unlovely casket. 

All unconscious of the fresh suspicions she had 
aroused, Alice was jolting slowly down town in a 
dingy horse-car, reflecting somewhat bitterly on the 
difference in her lot and Mrs. Fulkerson’s. Why 
was it that Mopsy and she, through no fault of their 
own, were doomed to lead lives of common laboring 
women, cursed with all the tastes and fancies of the 
rich and cultured ? Why was it that such creatures 
as Dennis Davenport were permitted to work such 
woe, and yet live unpunished? Why was it that 
Mopsy, almost a saint in her gentle unselfishness, 
should have been the chief sufferer at his wretched 
hands ? Why was any thing as it was ? And why 
was it that she left the car, and picked her way 
through the tangled maze of vehicles and cars and 
people and vans always to be found in Chatham 
Place, totally unconscious that a pair of surprised 
eyes were eagerly watching her movements ? 

It was not that Dr. Crocker had purposely fol- 
lowed her. It was simply that in the keeping of a 
professional engagement, his spanking team had 
brought him to Chatham Place at the identical 
moment of her leaving the slower moving car. 
Throwing the reins to his boy, he sprang from his 


Fresh Suspicions. 


95 


t>uggy, and ordered the vehicle home. Then, never 
once losing sight of the familiar gray form, he fol- 
lowed her to the door of the shabby hotel in Chatham 
Place, stationed himself just within it and waited. 

But his patience was not rewarded. 

Alice had volunteered to deliver Mr. Fulkerson’s 
letter in person from motives of her own. She 
wished to satisfy this unhappy mother of an un- 
worthy son, that it was useless to prosecute any 
search for that son’s wife. 

Her inquiries for the woman at the hotel proved 
fruitless. 

A Mrs. Davenport had spent one night and a day 
there. But that morning, early, she had gone to the 
clerk’s office, paid her bill, and gone away without 
saying any thing about returning. No, she had no 
baggage, but a small hand-bag. The most diligent 
inquiry of every official on the premises failed to 
elicit any thing but a repetition of the too bald 
facts that the woman had been there, and that she 
was not there now. There was nothing for her but 
to take the letter back with her. It was too com- 
promising in its character to be left to chance. But, 
there was one thing she could do. She could make 
sure of the woman, should she return. 

“ I suppose,” she said, slowly and reluctantly, “ if 
I were to leave the money here to pay for a messen- 
ger, you would dispatch one immediately to me, in 
case of her return ? ” 

“ Certainly, miss, certainly,” the greasy-looking 
head-clerk hastened to say. 

“ He is to come to — Park Avenue, but not to the 
front door; let the messenger come to the side wing, 
through the garden gate, and go to the end room in 
the wing, and ask simply for Mistress Alice,” she 
said in a low, distinct voice, adding, as she turned to 
get away from this most repulsive locality, “ pro- 
vided, of course, she comes before bed hours. Do 
not send your messenger later than ten o’clock.” 


96 


Old Fulkersons Clerk* 


As she pulled her veil down, and hurried through 
the evil-smelling dark corridor, the officious official 
followed her to the door, repeating in a loudly-as- 
senting voice — 

All right, ma’am. We’ll send him sure, not later 
than ten o’clock.” 

Ralph Crocker started, as the strange words fell 
on his ear, and as Mistress Alice, with veil doubled 
over her face, sped by him, utterly unconscious that 
the broad-shouldered man, who had been nearly 
blocking up the dark door-way, but had stepped 
aside for her impetuous egress, was Ralph Crocker, 
much less that he was standing there waiting for 
her.. 

That the mystery surrounding his uncle’s nurse 
should be explained, and that right speedily, was his 
stern and fixed resolve, as he finally turned his steps 
homeward in a frame of mind the reverse of placid. 

She was reading to his uncle, when he reached the 
house some two hours later. She did not look up at 
his entrance. A vivid spot of red burned on either 
cheek. That morning’s work and worry had left her 
in a state of nervous excitement bordering on hys- 
teria. Ralph seated himself in stern silence to 
await the close of the chapter. He knew it would 
find his uncle fast asleep. Alice closed the book 
softly and stole from the room noiselessly, without 
casting a glance in his direction. Her heart beat 
tumultuously against her side as she heard Dr. 
Crocker’s firm, rapid step behind her: — 

“ Mistress Alice, a moment with you, please.” 

His voice was so stern and cold that she knew the 
hour for defiance had come. What had precipitated 
it, she could hardly divine. At the worst, it would 
be but the giving up of fifteen dollars a week, and 
the exposure of a piece of daring folly. 

“ I am at your command, sir,” she said, stopping 
suddenly and facing toward him, 

“In here, if you please,” 


Fresh Suspicions, 


97 


His tones were a trifle kinder. What was there 
about the defiant attitude of this woman that nearly- 
disarmed suspicion ? 

He led the way into the little alcove, where he 
and Alice had held their first interview. She seated 
herself with her back to the light. He should not 
have the benefit of the tell-tale color coming and 
going from her cheeks beyond her own control. 

Seated in his office-chair, Ralph nervously toyed 
with a paper-cutter, while trying to frame the sub- 
stance of his suspicions into language that should 
not be too harsh. Finally, with much more the air 
of a culprit than she whom he was about to arraign, 
he began : — 

“ Mistress Alice, it becomes my painful duty to 
tell you that I have good reasons for believing that 
you are not exactly what you have led us to presume 
you were, that is, a plain, elderly, professional nurse.” 

He paused, hoping, perhaps, that Alice would 
simplify matters by an outburst. That the duty he 
was performing was painful, no one could possibly 
look at him and doubt. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

Her tones were simply those of polite attention. 
Then a pause. Ralph breaks it awkwardly enough : — 

“ Surely, you have been with my uncle long enough 
now to know that deceit is the unpardonable sin in 
his eyes ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

This time a little less composedly, and Mistress 
Alice’s black-mittened hands clasped each other 
nervously. 

“ If I do you injustice, your simple word of honor 
will satisfy me, but, pardon me the pain I must cause, 
I demand a direct answer to a direct question. Are 
you, or are you not, acting a part as my uncle’s 
elderly nurse ? Give me a ‘ yes ’ or a ‘ no.’ ” 

He was no longer nervous. He was simply and 
coldly judicial. Alice did not answer in words. 


98 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


Swiftly and silently she drew off the long black 
mitts that hid all but the fingers-tips of her white, 
pretty hands. Swiftly and silently she drew off the 
heavy black net, with its attachment of gray front, 
and allowed her own long-imprisoned hair to crown 
her flushed forehead. Then she doffed the smoked 
glasses, and flashed one reproachful glance at him 
from her splendid eyes, before she said, in a ringing 
voice : — 

‘‘Yes. Now that you are answered, what is your 
supreme pleasure? ” 

He was voiceless. She had put it tersely. What 
was his supreme pleasure? There was no mistaking 
the fact that admiration for this sudden revelation 
of youth and beauty was the predominant express- 
ion in Dr. Crocker’s eyes at that moment. Alice 
resumed in the same defiant tone: — 

“ For purposes of my own, not evil purposes, I 
assumed the slight disguise which converted me into 
an elderly woman eligible for the position I have 
filled. I do not believe it has been productive of 
harm to any one concerned, unless yourself,” with a 
light, mocking laugh. “ Driven to the verge of 
abject poverty through the wrong-doing of others, 
another, to be very accurate, the sum offered a nurse 
seemed large to me, and I thought the end would 
justify the means. For purposes of your own you 
have seen fit to pry into this disguise. You have 
unmasked me. What now? You have simply 
deprived an unfortunate woman of a good situation, 
and I do not believe I over-estimate my services in 
saying that your uncle, also, will be the loser by 
your zeal I am not simply his hired nurse. I take 
a deep interest in him as a man who has suffered as 
I have, through the treachery and deceit of others. 
I should be sorry to have this explanation to go 
through with twice. I shall leave you to explain my 
sudden departure to Mr. Fulkerson.” As she con- 
cluded she began slowly to resume the disguise 


Fresh Suspicions. 99 

that so completely transformed beautiful Alice 

• Gregory into plain Mistress Alice. 

Dr. Crocker put out a protesting hand : “ A 

moment. You are ruining your eyes with those 
wretched glasses.” 

“ I shall not need them after to-day,” she said, 

once more flashing the full splendor of them 

reproachfully upon the repentant detective in the 
office-chair. He rallied from it, and asked: — 

“ May I ask you one more question ? I would not 
seem to be a mere pitiful spy. As you say, that 
disguise is hardly more than a mask for beauty that 
would certainly have rendered you ineligible for the 
position.” 

“ Pardon me, I did not say that,” Alice retorted 
with a demure smile that only added to the doctor’s 
remorse and confusion. “ But your one more ques- 
tion.” Her eyes dropped, and he was not slow 
to see that the advantage was once more with 
him. 

“ You went to Chatham Place Hotel this morn- 
mg t 

“Yes.” Again that childish quivering of the 
sweet lips. 

“ Do you object to letting me know your errand 
there?” 

It was more of a plea than a command. Her eyes 
were raised to meet his. How she wished she could 
clear away all the ugly clouds of doubt and suspicion 
that had settled down upon her so cruelly. How 
impossible that she could satisfy him on this point, 
without betraying to him the secret his unhappy uncle 
had kept from him so jealously. She knew that her 
next words must confirm his worst suspicions, knew 
it and paused in breathless anguish before speaking 
them : “ I do object. I can not tell you what took 

me to that place.” 

How loud and harsh her voice sounded to herself! 
And how profound the stillness that followed ! No 


100 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


sound broke it, while she slowly readjusted the dis- 
guising net and glasses and gloves. 

“ One thing you will say to me before I go, will 
you not ? ” 

“ And that ? ” Oh, how far away and icy his voice 
sounded ! 

“Is, that you do not think Mr. Fulkerson has suf- 
fered on account of my deception.” 

“Not yet. But when he comes to know — ” He 
stopped. 

“Ah, well! When you come to know — ” 

She sighed wearily and passed out. of his presence, 
without finishing or explaining her sentence. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

DR. CROCKER BECOMES AN ACCOMPLICE. 

Saturday. Sunday. Monday. 

Three days, since she had fled from Park Avenue, 
and Alice was pacing the little room in Mrs. Grimm’s 
boarding-house, with the nervous restlessness of a 
caged thing. Denied even the solace of Mopsy’s 
company! Not that she would have her back, for 
Mopsy was out in the pure, fresh country, teaching 
in a farmer’s family, at a place got for her through 
the friendly interest of that Dr. Samuels whom Alice 
had never seen. In the letter she had just sealed 
and stamped, there was nothing but tender solici- 
tude for the sister whom she missed so bitterly, but 
no mention of the suddeh darkness that had fallen 
upon her own pathway. 

Of course she would have to seek another situa- 
tion. Because her harmless disguise had been pen- 


Dr. Crocker Becomes an Accomplice. loi 

etrated by Ralph Crocker's keen eyes ; because she 
had been compelled to give up the place where she 
had done good service and been so comfortable in 
her pretty room, was no reason why she should be 
idle any longer than she could possibly help. The 
burden of Dennis Davenport’s wrong-doing still 
pressed sorely upon her and Mopsy’s shoulders. 
Once the mortgage paid off on Mopsy’s little Thirty- 
fifth Street house, and they would be promoted to 
the dignity of boarding-house keepers themselves. 
That was the best luck that could befall them now. 
But so long as the rent was devoted exclusively to 
that purpose, they must devise some other way of 
making their living expenses. 

From somber considerations of her own lot, her 
thoughts sped back to the old man who had been 
her charge now for six months. She had come to 
like him so much ! She had found out how much of 
good there was beneath that crusty, irritable exterior 
of his. And then, by reason of the bond which she 
alone knew of, she felt as if she could be to him 
more than any mere hireling could ever be. She 
took spiteful satisfaction in reflecting that she had 
left Dr. Crocker his full share of discomfort on this 
occasion, by leaving the explanation of her absence 
entirely on his shoulders. She wondered what he 
would tell his uncle. She wondered if Mr. Fulker- 
son would turn against her suddenly and entirely, 
and rank her among the common cheats and impos- 
tors against whom he inveighed with such constant 
bitterness. 

A knock at the door ! In answer to her rather 
querulous “ Come in,” Mrs. Grimm’s own head was 
inserted in the doorway, and Mrs. Grimm’s own 
august tones, impregnated now with surprise she 
could not conceal, announced : 

“A gentleman, ma’am, for you. A real gentle- 
man, tall silk hat, gloves, and all. And if it wasn’t 
a different name that I see right here before my eyes. 


102 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


I’d have said it was that very doctor Samyells that 
came to see your sister, poor dear, when she was so 
bad.” 

Mrs. Grimm reluctantly extended a card, which it 
was evident she regarded in the light of her own 
perquisite, destined by rights to add fresh glory to 
the dingy majolica plate of dusty cards at that 
moment on the parlor center-table. 

Alice seized the card and read : Ralph Crocker, 
M. D.” 

She had grown sick and white at the announce- 
ment that a “ gentleman ” wanted to see her. What 
gentleman could be seeking her, but Dennis Daven- 
port? She would not let that man into her life 
again. The revulsion to relief was tremendous. 
The color came back to her cheeks in a sudden rush. 
Mrs. Grimm, noting the fact, made a mental memo- 
randum to the effect that it was Miss Gregory’s 
beau that was at that moment shedding the radiance 
of broadcloth and silk hat upon her dingy reception 
room. 

“ I will be with him in a moment,” she said, turn- 
ing from Mrs. Grimm’s staring eyes, and walking 
toward the bureau. Her eyes were filled with 
wicked triumph. She stood for a second giving one or 
two touches to the fluffy yellow curls about her fore- 
head, and a furtive little dab of powder to the straight 
nose, whose tip was rosy enough to suggest recent 
tears. She was only a woman and pretty, what 
would you ? She wondered how he had traced her 
to Mrs. Grimm’s boarding-house, then clasped her 
hands in sudden excitement. Of course he was 
Mopsy’s Dr. Samuels. 

Ralph Crocker stared with undisguised surprise 
when she finally stood before him, outwardly demure 
and quiet, inwardly agitated and expectant. He 
had seen her shorn of the gray front, the disfiguring 
glasses, and the dismal mittens ; but the graceless 
gray serge, made after the shapeless dress reform 


Dr, Crocker Becomes an Accomplice, 103 

patterns, and padded on the shoulder-back to add to 
the impression of old age, had still left him unpre- 
pared for the slender, gracefully erect form that now- 
entered to him. He had a confused impression of 
three people all rolled into one. The bonneted girl 
at the printing office ; grave, elderly, unbeautiful 
Mistress Alice ; and this radiant young woman, 
whose blonde beauty was set off to the very best ad- 
vantage by the deep blue of the dress she wore. 
Alice was wickedly conscious of her triumph. 

“ Can it be possible,” he said, extending the hand 
of .reconciliation, “ that this is our Mistress Alice ? ” 

Alice serenely seated herself in apparent uncon- 
sciousness of the hand. 

No,” she said, “you have annihilated Mistress 
Alice. She has ceased to exist. This is simply 
Alice Gregory in search of work.” 

“ But my uncle says he can not and will not do 
without- Mistress Alice. He refuses to be com- 
forted.” 

“ That is only natural,” said Alice coldly ; “ he 
had grown used to my way of doing things, and 
dislikes to try another stranger.” 

“ He says that you became possessed of a secret 
most damaging to him, and deserted him when he 
most needed you.” 

“And you let him believe that of me, and did not 
tell him that you drove me from him ? ” 

Her calmness was all gone now. Her cheeks were 
aflame, and her eyes were luminous with the wrath- 
ful indignation she did not care to conceal. How 
regal she was in her anger ! How beautiful with 
that flame of color on each white cheek ? 

“ It were worth the risk of angering you,” he said 
presently, smiling gravely down into her flushed 
face, “ in order to see you so throughly aroused.” 

Hot tears quenched the fire in her eyes, and that 
quivering of the lip which had appealed so powerfully 
to him when the lips had belonged to plain Mistress 


104 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


Alice, brought Dr. Crocker to a speedy and earnest 
confession : — 

“ You can not think so poorly of me as all that ? 
See, I am here this morning in the attitude of a sup- 
plicant. Forgive me. Mistress Alice, for the reflec- 
tions I so cruelly cast upon you. I know now that 
the secret you held so inviolate was not your own, 
that you guarded it even at the risk of having suspi- 
cion cast upon yourself. It was nobly and unself- 
ishly done.” 

Once more he extended his hand. This time Alice 
took it, and he drew her gently to a seat beside him 
on the sofa. 

“ Tell me all that has happened, please,” she asked 
with shining eyes. Dr. Crocker smiled as he began 
his narrative by saying : — 

“ I am afraid I shall figure as the villain of the 
piece, or at least, as a very clumsy marplot. Uncle 
Telfair expressed a little surprise at your non- 
appearance on Saturday evening : but when I told 
him you had gone home, looking very badly, he took 
himself generously to task, saying that Mistress 
Alice’s patient unselfishness made him forgetful of 
her needs, and he was glad you had gone to get a 
rest. ‘ Only,’ he added, ‘she might have told me- 
good-by, she always did,’ immediately upon the heels 
of which he excused you. ‘ Of course, he was 
asleep.’ He never willingly allows any blame to at- 
tach to you.” 

“ Dear old man, he was as good to me as a father. 
But go on, please. I am curious to know how you 
explained my absence to-day.” 

“ I did not wait for to-day. Yesterday I told my 
uncle that you were not coming back to him, that I 
had seen fit to question you in a manner you did 
not approve, and that you had gone away declining 
to leave any word of explanation for him. At tiisit 
his wrath was terrible to behold. I regarded it as 
entirely unjustified, even by the loss of so good a 


Dr, Crocker Becomes an Acco^nplice. 105 

nurse as yourself, until he made that statement about 
your being in possession of a secret which you could 
use to his hurt, and he supposed you would use for 
the purpose of extracting money/' 

“Cruel! cruel! cruel! How dared he think such 
things of me? ” 

Her cheeks were once more angrily aflame. 

“ Pardon him. Mistress Alice, and bear in mind 
how much he has suffered through hypocrisy. But 
that remark of his threw an entirely new light upon 
your visit to that very questionable locality, Chatham 
Place. I saw you there. Mistress Alice. It was due 
to you that I should take all the blame of your de- 
parture upon myself, which I did as soon as I could 
command his attention. ‘ Uncle,’ I said, ‘we must 
have Mistress Alice back. It is my fault that she 
left you. By chance, I discovered her in a very 
equivocal position. I believed there was some mys- 
tery about her, and I tried to probe it. She defiantly 
refused to explain her visit to Chatham Place Hotel, 
and left on that account.' Then Uncle Telfair 
turned the vials of his wrath upon me. I am used 
to it. Moreover, this time I deserved it. He 
ordered me out of his presence, never to return until 
I had found you and brought you back to him. I 
always obey my uncle,” he added, with a roguish 
gleam in his eyes. 

“ But how did you find me ? ” she asked eagerly. 

“ Find you ? Why, I’ve — ” He stopped, con- 
fused at his own blunder. 

— “ been here before,” said Allie, finishing the 
sentence for him. “ Dr. Samuels, thank you for all 
you’ve done for my darling Mopsy.” 

“Is my confession complete?” he asked, hastily 
waiving that phase of the subject. 

“ After all,” said Alice sadly, “ the mischief is irrev- 
ocable. To go back to Mr. Fulkerson as my true 
seB, would be to take an entire stranger into his 
presence. He wants Mistress Alice back, and she is 


io6 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


gone. You have murdered her.’' She looked at 
him with mingled amusement and reproach. I 
knew that my youth would be against me, and that 
was why I tried to be old and safely ugly." 

“ Pardon me, but my uncle knows nothing on that 
score. Your assumption of years, as fitting you for 
this position, I regard as harmless. I’m sure the 
grave demeanor of Mistress Alice was in complete 
accord with her gray front and — ’’ 

“Antique back," said Alice, showing her white 
teeth in the first laugh Ralph had ever heard from 
her. 

“But," she resumed more gravely, “you know it. 
You will be thinking of me all the time as an 
impostor." 

“ And of myself as an accomplice," he said 
smiling. “ I have weighed the matter in all its 
bearings. My uncle was a happier, better, more con- 
siderate man, while you were with him, than he has 
been at any time since his affliction. You are neces- 
sary to his comfort. What his secret is, I do not 
care to inquire. It is for him to choose his own con- 
fidential messengers ; but one earnest request I must 
make of you, when you shall have come back to 
us — 

“ And that is ? " 

“ That you will take me as an escort whenever you 
are called upon to visit Chatham Place." 

“ You are very good to me. It is not likely I shall 
have to repeat that visit, fruitless as it was. Besides, 
Mistress Alice may go any where with impunity." 

“ Not with my consent." 

There was a masterful ring in the words and the 
voice, but Alice did not resent it. 

“ You will come back," he said, eagerly returning 
to the main question. 

“ I will come back. Mistress Alice will come back 
to take up the same duties with a lighter heart. I 
have loathed even the outward deception I have 


Dr. Crocker Becomes an Accomplice. 107 

practiced. I have feared you especially, but now 
that you know, and do not disapprove, I feel bolder. 
There are reasons why," she said, dropping her eyes 
to the dingy rug on which her feet rested, “ I can do 
this old man better service than any one else ever 
could." 

She paused. It was a daring thing she was about 
to do, but she did not want the shadow of deception 
to rest again between her and the man sitting by her 
side. A possibility of the future confronted her. 
She would be no longer plain Mistress Alice to Ralph 
Crocker. • There was no mistaking the tribute of 
admiration his eyes paid her every time her own met 
them. It would be so easy for her to love this man. 
Strong, intellectual, high-minded, pure-hearted. It 
would be so easy to rest her tired soul in communion 
with him. She must arm herself and him against all 
possible assaults of the flesh and the devil. She felt, 
in this long silence of hers, that his eyes were fastened 
on her face not simply in polite attention. Oh, the 
conditions of her lot in life were very hard. 

“ And those reasons ? " he asked gently. 

“ Because the man who defrauded your uncle of 
his money and his faith in human nature, defrauded 
me, too, of every thing that makes life worth living 
to a woman. Because all unwittingly, it is true, I 
fear I may have enjoyed the wealth your uncle was 
defrauded of. Because we have both suffered at the 
same pair of remorseless hands. Because — I am 
Dennis Davenport’s wife." 

“And Dennis Davenport still lives?" The voice 
which spoke these words was thick with suppressed 
emotion. Ralph was looking at her with gloomy eyes. 

“ Dennis Davenport still lives ! " 

He stood up, and held out both hands to her. 
She laid her own in the strong man’s clasp. 

“Then God pity us — all. You will come back to 
us. Mistress Alice ? You will come back, and teach 
us all how to suffer and be strong?" 


io8 


Old Fulkersons Clerk, 


‘‘ I will come back ! ” 

She looked up at him with a brave, sweet smile, 
their hands fell apart, and she was alone. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

DAVID DUNCAN REPENTS HIM OF A GOOD DEED. 

Solitude is perhaps as often the mother of evil as 
of good thoughts, although solitude and reflection 
are popularly thought to be all that are necessary for 
the repentance of evil deeds done or contemplated. 

On the day that David Duncan turned from 
Georgina Markam, and, spurred by fright or by 
remorse, fled from her down the rocky hill-side path 
they had climbed together so lovingly but a little 
while before, his only thought was that he must put 
as much space as possible between himself and 
temptation. 

The evening dews were already falling, and lights 
had begun to twinkle in the little cottage yonder on 
the hill. The turning of a loose stone under his 
hurrying feet compelled him to seat himself with a 
low cry of pain. Sitting there and waiting for what 
he presumed would be but transient pain to pass 
away, he tore from his diary a piece of paper, and 
penciling on it the few words which Georgina after- 
ward found, he rolled it up in a compact package. 
The spot where he sat was one rarely visited by any 
one but themselves. He knew so well the habits of 
this loving young thing whose heart he had won so 
recklessly, that he was about to attach the package 
to a limb of the tree they called their trysting tree, 
when a familiar voice called up from the road 
below ; — 


David Duncan Repents Him of a Good Deed. 109 

Hello, Cap, want a messenger boy ? ” 

It was Lai, a witless boy to whom Duncan had 
often contemptuously thrown a penny. 

“ Here, Lai ! ’’ 

Lai bounded up the rocks to where he stood. 

“You think you could get this package safe to 
Miss Georgie ? ” 

“ Cause why not?” Lai asked reproachfully. 

“ And without letting any one else see it? ” 

“ Cause why not ? ” 

So ‘the delicate mission which Lai performed in 
true troubadour style, was entrusted to him, supple- 
mented by a handsome tip, and Mr. Duncan limped 
forward on his way to the village at the foot of the 
hill, where he had himself conveyed with all speed to 
the yacht lying off shore, idly awaiting the pleasure 
of himself and half a dozen kindred spirits for whose 
enjoyment it was there. 

A few days later found him once more installed 
in his own rooms in one of the most expensive 
hotels in Toronto, and left to himself : for the sea- 
son was still far too enjoyable for his comrades to 
waste any portion of it within the stony precincts of 
the town, immured in a sick-room with a man, who, 
while he had all the outward adjuncts and appear- 
ances of a gentleman, had failed so far to arouse 
any enthusiasm in the circles in which he moved. 

Mr. Duncan was the possessor of a sprained 
ankle, doomed to many weeks of inaction, and with 
ample opportunity thrust upon him for the exercise 
of that wholesome discipline of the mind, which 
presumably fills our hours of solitude. 

Reading had never been much of a resource to 
this man. Endowed with a bright mind, and with 
keen mental perceptions, his preference had always 
been the study of mankind, and the ways and 
means of best advancing his own interests at the 
expense of others. Not that he ever acknowledged 
even to himself any such cold-blooded intention. 


no Old Fulkersons Clerk. 

He regarded himself as a man of average morality. 
There were many worse than he, and some better. 
Those who were better, had simply not been led 
into temptation. Even now, when the evil he had 
done filled a long and black catalogue, he could 
recall the thrill of horror and self-disgust attending 
his first step outside the beaten path of honesty. 
That first and hardest step of all ! It had all come 
about so gradually. He could sit there now, in his 
Toronto rooms, safe and comfortable, surrounded 
by the ease and luxury purchased by his ill-gotten 
wealth, and retrace every step, wondering, marvel- 
ing in a speculative fashion, over the hardening 
process which had been going on in his heart all the 
while, rendering him utterly oblivious of every 
thing but his own mad wishes. Whose fault was it ? 
He was fatalist enough to conclude that it had all 
been intended, or it would never have been. He 
scoffed at the idea of remorse. True, it was a feel- 
ing very near akin to remorse that had made him 
turn and fly from Georgina Markam’s presence. 
But the innocence of her upturned gaze, the blushing 
ardor of her involuntary avowal of her love for him, 
the sweet purity of the gentle creature who had 
given him so much in exchange for his guilty pas- 
sion, had over-awed him for one second with a crush- 
ing sense of unworthiness. 

But after all, had he not acted the part of a fool in 
running away from her? He was entirely secure. 

He had lived in Toronto now for four years, the 

respected owner of a moderate income derived from 
the rental of one or two houses. True he lived 

the life of a gay young man of fashion, but of 

unquestioned respectability. The game was rather 
a dangerous one, but had he the courage to play 
it to the end and win Georgie for his very own, he 
might as David Duncan live out the remainder of 
his life happily and respectably. He even senti- 
mentalized over the moral influence such a wife 


David Duncan Repents Him of a Good Deed, in 

would exercise. She would not be like that other 
one, haughtily rigid in her views of right and wrong, 
uncompromisingly severe in her denunciation of 
whosoever swerved from the path of duty. Going 
slowly over his past, sitting there placidly consum- 
ing a vast number of fragrant cigars, David Duncan 
once more saw himself as Dennis Davenport, fresh 
from college, consigned by the widowed mother, 
who had always doted on him to a rather 
inconvenieht extent, to the “ old friend of his 
father’s,” who had promised to give him a 
start in life. He saw himself, years ago, a 
simple-hearted, fresh young boy entering the employ 
of Mr. Telfair Fulkerson as entry clerk and steno- 
grapher. What excessively fresh days those were, 
he recalled with a sneer, when a cigar smoked on the 
Battery of evenings, or a stall at Niblo’s was com- 
pensation ample for a hard day of honest toil. He 
recalled the first dawnings of keen curiosity, simply 
curiosity, concerning the workings of that magical 
machine, the stock exchange. How it amused and 
interested him to hear the marvelous stories of 
success and failure within that charmed circle, 
whose doings made up the staple of conversation in 
down-town business circles ! He remembered the 
birth-hour of a wish, only an innocent wish, that he, 
too, might mount to fortune’s glittering heights by 
such pleasantly easy steps. He remembered the 
birth-hour of his dissatisfaction with the slow, 
inadequate progress he, old Fulkerson’s clerk, was 
making, while men who had started out in life with 
no more brains nor any better showing, were reap- 
ing the golden harvests of their own energy and 
enterprise. He recalled the fatherly interest old 
Fulkerson had taken in him, and how much good 
advice he had expended on him, warning him often 
against the baleful atmosphere of Wall Street. He 
remembered the thrill of exultation that went 
through him when, by gradual promotion, he finally 


II2 


Old Fulkersons Clerk, 


reached the position of Mr. Fulkerson’s private 
correspondent and confidential clerk, with powers 
almost plenipotentiary. 

He remembered meeting at Long Branch the 
Misses Gregory, Alice and Mopsy — pretty, clever 
young society ladies, reputed much wealthier than 
they really were. He remembered the devil whis- 
pering -to him on that first evening of acquaintance, 
on which occasion the devil wore a dress-coat and 
white tie, and answered to the name of Joe Baxter. 
‘‘Win pretty Alice Gregory, and her money will 
help you into Wall Street.” It had been an easy 
winning, for Dennis Davenport’s face and manners 
would impose a fiction of manly superiority on 
almost any woman, and Alice had loved and believed 
in him in those days. He had been moderately 
happy with her. He had never loved her. She had 
too much character of her own. He had always 
been half afraid of her. So different from dear, 
pretty, confiding Georgina ! Wall Street had seemed 
easily and honestly accessible after he had married 
money. He did not remember — what stock-gambler 
ever does ? — all the intermediate steps between that 
first difficult, tremulous “ put ” of his, to the final 
and recklessly daring “ straddle ” that ended in 
ruin and exposure. 

He remembered the shocked surprise of old 
Fulkerson. He remembered the withering scorn of 
his handsome young wife, herself the embodiment 
of honorable rectitude, when he proposed to her to 
fly to Canada with him. It was not his fault she had 
been left behind. He remembered nothing more 
about Dennis Davenport, who had ceased to exist 
at that juncture. 

David Duncan, householder, of Toronto, Canada, 
had nothing in common with old Fulkerson’s reck- 
less stock-gambling clerk, nothing in common, save 
a pair of wonderful, untrustworthy, splendid eyes, a 
cruel mouth, and a stained conscience. This man 


A Talisman, 


113 

had never known what it was to desire a thing, and 
not strive for its possession. He desired Georgina 
Markam above all earthly good. Fool, to have 
been frightened from her side by the chance mention 
of old Fulkerson’s name ! What if he were twenty 
times her brother-in-law, what risk did David Dun- 
can, of Toronto, Canada, run? 

He would wait until Georgina returned from New 
York. She was not one of the fickle sort. A wom- 
an does not easily forget the man who has pressed 
the first kiss of passion on her lips. But the longer 
he thought of waiting, the more dangerous delay 
seemed. She might not be naturally fickle, but 
every exertion would be made, to wean her from 
him. Fool ! He should never have let her go. No, 
he would not wait. 

A clandestine marriage, a flight back into Canada, 
a contrite letter to an irate mother, a graceful ac- 
ceptance of the inevitable on the parental part, what 
easier, more simple, more desirable ? 

Yes, he would do it, just so soon as that infernal 
ankle would let him walk. 


CHAPTER XV. 


A TALISMAN. 

The date for Mrs. Fulkerson’s reception, which was 
the modest name given to the grand affaif at which 
Georgina Markam’s beauty was to be properly 
placed on exhibition for the benefit of New York 
society, was fixed. The cards were issued. But few 
regrets were sent. Mrs. Fulkerson was refulgent 
with good humor and happy anticipation. She was 


114 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk, 


to have all the glory with none of the attendant 
agonies of party giving. Competent decorators and 
caterers had all that in hand. She had only to 
admire and disburse. 

Her own dress and Georgina’s were all she had to 
worry about. Those, indeed, and Georgina’s provok- 
ing apathy. What a sensation that girl could create 
once she was cured of her lovesick fancy for that 
Canada creature, and would give her attention to 
the practical business of life ; the practical business 
of life, as defined by Mrs. Fulkerson, meaning a 
good settlement. The idea of a girl moping for a 
lover who could be scared off by a mother’s frown, 
let her frown ever so darkly ! 

Thus Mrs. Fulkerson meditated, standing in front 
of the two dresses which had just been sent home 
for herself and Georgie. Georgie was out ; she had 
driven down to Sarony’s, to get the finished photo- 
graphs of herself that had been taken under her 
sister’s interested supervision. She, Georgie, wished 
to send one of them to poor dear old papa. 

There was very little satisfaction, Mrs. Fulkerson 
concluded, in looking at fine dresses with no other 
woman by to rhapsodize or criticise. Mistress 
Alice did not look as if she either knew or cared' 
much about fine clothes, but she was a woman, and 
a pretty clear-headed one, Ralph and Mr. Fulkerson 
declared. The dresses were on Georgina’s bed. 
The light from the bay-window in that room was so 
good. Certainly, if that delicate peach-blossom bro- 
cade and satin robe, with its square-cut corsage, and 
cascade of soft lace, did not stir Georgina’s pulse, 
she was impervious to finery. 

Mrs. Fulkerson suddenly appeared in the stone 
wing. It was Mistress Alice’s noon hour of rest, 
before her early dinner. She was certain to find her 
there. She entered impetuously, and said eag- 
erly: — 

“ Do come to my side of the house for a moment, 


A Talisman, 


115 

Mistress Alice. I want your opinion on a subject 
of grave importance.” 

Alice rose wonderingly. There was so unusual an 
appearance of earnestness about Mrs. Fulkerson that 
the issue must be grave indeed. It was seldom that 
the nurse had occasion to visit the sumptuous apart- 
ments on the second floor. Her business lay exclu- 
sively with the paralytic and his doctor, although, 
since her return, it was little enough she saw of the 
latter. 

“ She was quite equal to the entire charge of his 
uncle’s case now,” Ralph told her, and although he 
still sat silently through the reading hours, she was 
conscious that he did not care to linger within the 
gloomy confines of his uncle’s room. 

The beauty and splendor of Mrs. Fulkerson’s own 
apartments burst on Alice with a sense of surprise, 
as, throwing back the velvet portieres one after the 
other, Edith moved rapidly through the suite, until 
the pretty room with its bright alcove, “ Georgie’s 
room,” as it was called now, was reached. 

“ Do, my dear creature, give me your opinion 
about those dresses on the bed. Georgina is so 
aggravatingly indifferent that the entire responsi- 
bility of her appearance next Thursday rests with 
me. Now do you think that peach brocade will be 
becoming to her ? The pattern is rather pronounced, 
but then she has the height to carry it off well.” 

Mrs. Fulkerson sank with a sigh of anxiety on a 
sofa, where she could still command a full view of 
the gorgeous raiment upon the bed. Her fair fore- 
head was seamed with deep reflection. Her hand- 
some eyes were dark with brooding responsibility. 
This was not a mere “ social event,” as the stupid 
newspapers would be sure to call it. It was an 
epoch. On the success of the coming affair hung 
Georgina’s hopes for happiness. Small wonder that 
she planned accurately for each point. She hoped 
to repeat her own girlish triumphs in those of 


Il6 Old Fulkersons Clerk. 

her lovely young sister. Her whole being was 
aroused. 

Mistress Alice expressed her opinion of the dresses 
with a fluency of technique quite unexpected from 
the wearer of a gray serge made in the shapeless 
dress-reform style. Alice was thinking how very 
much the dress reminded her of one worn by Mopsy 
on the occasion of a wedding reception given by 
Mrs. Dennis Davenport. 

“My dear creature, how relieved I am! You have 
shown yourself quite qualified to give an opinion. 
Do help me to select the corsage flowers from this 
box full. I really owe you an apology. I didn’t 
dream you had an idea above a bottle of physic.” 

While she was talking, Mrs. Fulkerson swooped 
down upon a white box on a stand by Georgie’s 
bureau. In her eagerness she swept from the stand 
a small rosewood writing-desk. It fell with a crash 
to the floor. 

“ Mercy! quick! Do pick it up before the ink is 
spilled over every thing.” 

Alice stooped to repair the damage done by the 
lady’s impetuous carelessness. In a heap on the 
carpet lay all the contents of the writing-desk. She 
lifted them en masse, and was replacing them with 
all possible speed, when, staring at her there, with 
those unmistakable eyes and that unforgotten mouth, 
was Dennis Davenport, her husband, handsome, 
sensual, cool, and cruel ! There, motionless on her 
knees, she held the picture, and stared at it, power- 
less to move a muscle. 

Mrs. Fulkerson’s attention was attracted by her 
motionless attitude. With her own hands full of 
the artificial flowers whose effect against the lace- 
trimmed corsage of pink satin she had been trying, 
she came and glanced down over the nurse’s shoul- 
der : — 

“ What have you there ? ” 

“ Only a picture that fell from the desk.” Alice 


A Talisman. 


117 

laid it hurriedly face downward. It reminded me 
so much of some one^ — that I knew, that I forgot 
myself.” 

Letting the flowers fall in a heap on the floor, 
Mrs. Fulkerson seized the picture : — 

“ I must see it. No doubt it is that Canada creat- 
ure mamma wrote me about a nobody with whom 
Georgina has fallen in love. My ! but the wretch 
is handsome ! What a pair of eyes ! ” 

“ And what a mouth,” Alice said in a low tone of 
intense bitterness, busying herself with the other 
scattered trifles. 

This mystery of her husband's picture in this sweet 
girl’s possession was not hard to penetrate. No 
doubt, in Canada he was living a godless life on his 
ill-gotten wealth, passing for an unmarried man. 
Strange, that the clumsy laws of the world made 
such conduct possible and safe. She must have a 
little time to think over this discovery. It was 
barely possible that this was a chance likeness. Her 
one thought was, “ I must save this girl.” 

“ Edith ! ” 

Full of indignant reproach, a clear ringing voice 
from the direction of the portiere made both women 
start guiltily. 

Mrs. Fulkerson answered that ringing reproach 
defiantly : — 

“ I accidentally knocked your writing-desk down, 
and Mistress Alice is repairing the damage. This 
pictilre of a very handsome man fell out, and I am 
looking at it. No harm in all that. I’m sure. It is 
not hard for me to guess who it is.” 

“ I will not put you to the trouble of guessing,” 
said Georgina icily. “ It is Mr. David Duncan’s 
picture you hold.” 

“ Your Canada adorer ? ’’ asked Edith lightly, fling- 
ing the carte into the open desk, which Alice had 
returned to position. 

“My Canada friend?” said Georgie haughtily, 


Ii8 Old Fulker sorts Clerk. 

then turned away to hide the hot tears of humilia- 
tion that filled her eyes in spite of herself. 

Edith’s arm was about her caressingly in a 
moment : — 

“ There, child, there ! For mercy’s sake, don’t go 
and get a red nose and swollen eyelids this evening 
of all evenings. You know you’re booked for the 
Lacy’s. There’s not one particle of harm done. No 
one but Mistress Alice and I know your little 
romance. You are not the only girl in the world 
whose desk-lid has hidden eyes like that away from 
the vulgar gaze.” 

“ No,” said staid Mistress Alice, nor are you the 
only girl who has erected in a fresh young heart a 
pedestal upon which to enshrine an idol of 
clay.” 

With this unwonted burst of sentiment, delivered 
with a degree of earnestness altogether out of keep- 
ing with that gray front, that gray serge, and her 
usual quiet demeanor. Mistress Alice gathered up the 
fallen flowers, and laying them upon the lace over- 
dress, skillfully diverted the current of thought into a 
safer channel. 

^‘You will look lovely,” she said, turning her gaze 
upon the predestined wearer of the fairy-like robe, 
“ and I hope you will be as happy as a girl of your 
age ought to be with such inducements and such 
anticipations.” 

“You think, then, that such frippery is all that is 
necessary for my happiness? Ah, Mistress Alice, 
what a poor opinion you must have of me ! ” 

“ Dear child, you have no idea how much in earn- 
est I am in seeing you happy. See ! I am going to 
depart from all precedent, and ask you to let me see 
you when you are dressed for the great occasion. I 
have an amulet I want you to wear on that evening. 
Come to me to-night for it, will you not? ” 

“ An amulet ! That sounds delicious ! ” 

“Yes, an amulet that will ward off the greatest 


A Talisman, 


119 

danger ,that could possibly threaten you. Mind, 
when you are dressed for dinner come to me.” 

Georgie gave an eager promise to do so, and 
Alice went back to her humble quarters in the stone 
wing. 

Her own heart held nothing but loathing for Den- 
nis Davenport. There was not one throb of pity or 
regret left for him. There was one chance in ten 
thousand that this Canada lover of Georgina Mark- 
am’s bore only a chance likeness to her fugitive hus- 
band. Nevertheless, she would arm the innocent girl 
against that one ten-thousandth chance of suffering 
at Dennis Davenport’s hands. She would make it 
her care to watch every avenue of approach by which 
this child might be ensnared, but she must plan her 
mode of operations carefully. It was hardly likely 
that Dennis would dare to seek her so long as she 
was under Mr. Telfair Fulkerson's roof. And as she 
rarely left the house, save in her sister’s company, 
she was safe to that degree. To tell the whole truth 
bluntly, was to involve herself, this girl, Mr. Fulker- 
son, every one, afresh in the shame and disgrace of 
connection with the defaulter. 

That night, when the gas was lighted in the long 
dining-room, shedding a brilliant radiance over the 
cut-glass and silver and soft damask that always 
made the dinner-table in this house wear a banquet- 
like grace and elegance, and Mr. Fulkerson had been 
rolled to his place at the side, and Mrs. Fulkerson, 
stately in black velvet and point lace, ornamented 
the head of the board, and opposite her Dr. Crocker, 
lending dignity to the other end, Georgie stole into 
Alice’s presence, dressed, it is true, with all due 
regard to the table etiquette no one under that roof 
ever slighted, but with a pale face and swollen eye- 
lids, testifying to the foolish, tender heart within, to 
the undisciplined soul, and the trusting, child-like 
nature of their owner. 

Ah,” she said, flinging herself into the little rib- 


120 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


bon-festooned wicker chair that stood by the twi- 
lighted window, “ it is so cool and pleasant and dark 
in here. Let me stay with you, Mistress Alice. I 
can not endure the glare and the stiff etiquette in 
yonder. I am afraid of them all — Edith, her hus- 
band, and your Dr. Ralph, with his big, penetrating 
eyes that seem to search for every thought of your 
brain, every pulsation of your heart.” 

“You are excited to-night, my dear, or you could 
never do such injustice to such good friends. They 
all admire and love you.” 

“All?” Georgie laughed a nervous, restless little 
laugh. It was evident the girl was laboring under 
some intense excitement. Something had occurred 
of more importance than the exposure of the picture 
in her desk. “ Especially your Dr. Crocker ! Oh, 
he loves me dearly ! I can see it in his eyes. He 
thinks me a feeble simpleton, and to think that 
Edith — ” She stopped, and sat nervously plucking 
little patches from the down on her fan. 

“ Should what ? ” Alice asked, going as she spoke 
toward a desk in one corner of the room. 

“ Should be shameless enough to fling me at his 
head as she does. She imagines this grave, hand- 
some doctor would be a desirable catch. Bah ! He 
sees every thing, and despises her and me both for 
it. He is enjoying himself at my expense, and I 
can’t help it.” 

“ I think you do Dr. Crocker a cruel injustice. 
He is not capable of enjoying himself at any woman’s 
expense.” 

“ You like him ? ” in an amazed voice. 

“Yes, better than nurses generally like doctors. 
They are natural enemies, you know.” 

She came back with a small box in her hand. 

“ I told you I had an amulet for you, dear. I, too, 
have been young, have loved and suffered. Itisall over 
now. Life is grown dull, and gray, and insipid. My 
keenest suffering in the past came from the deceit of 


A Talisman. 


I2I 


Others. I would ward that off from you, if I possi- 
bly can. You know, in the olden time, when a lady 
would test her lover’s sincerity, she would set him 
some hard task to perform, upon whose accomplish- 
ment rested the conditional reward of her hand. In 
modern times, perhapswomen are too lightly wooed, 
too easily won. No act of prowess, no guarantee of 
worth is demanded. Do I sound like a croaking old 
fortune teller? ” she asked, in a lighter tone. “ I’m 
nothing of the sort, dear, but I have a fancy to 
adorn you with a trinket that is now worse than use- 
less to me. Let us revive the age of chivalry for 
our own amusement, or, at least, one small bit of it.” 

Then she took from the box a bracelet of old gold. 
It was a simple circlet of Etruscan workmanship. 
At the clasp was a small square golden box fastened 
by a minute padlock. On one side of the box was 
a monogram, on the other a date. 

“ Will you wear this for me ? ” 

Georgie promptly extended her plump white 
wrist ; Alice clasped the circlet around it. 

“ See,” she said, “ curiously enough, the mono- 
gram is composed of a double D.” 

Georgina held the tiny box in her left hand, and 
gazed at it with tender reverence. 

“ It contains,” Alice resumed in a clear, cold 
voice, “ a broken sixpence, or one half of a broken 
sixpence, I should say. I can not show it to you, 
for the key is not in my possession. I heard you 
tell your sister that your Canada friend’s name was 
David Duncan. The similarity of the initials with 
those on my trinket suggested to me a pretty jest. 
Girls are fond of doing original things. It would be 
a quaint idea to set your lover a task. He is your 
lover?” this questioningly. 

Georgina raised her startled eyes in one all-con- 
fessing glance. Then, as they fell once more on the 
old bracelet, a Yes,” softer than an infant’s sigh, 
fluttered over her lips. 


122 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


^‘Ah, so I thought. He should be chary of 
wounding so tender a heart. Child, promise me — 
perhaps, after all, it is only a foolish woman’s whim, 
but it can work no harm — promise that when 
next he comes a-wooing, you will show him your 
amulet. Never tell how it came into your posses- 
sion. Tell him, that only he who can bring the key 
to fit that lock, and can match the broken piece of 
sixpence it contains, can hope to win your hand.” 

“ You set him an impossible task, Mistress Alice.” 

“ Nothing is impossible to love when sustained 
by truth and honor.” 

“After all,” said Georgie, catching at the romance 
of the idea with girlish enthusiasm, “ it would be a 
pretty pastime. I will try him.” 

“And you will let me into the sequel? You are to 
let me know how your nineteenth century knight 
meets the test.” 

Georgina’s sweet face suddenly clouded. 

“ Perhaps I am selfishly accepting at your hands 
something very precious to you.” 

“ No, it is valueless. I applied the test. It failed, 
he failed.” 

“ Poor Mistress Alice ! ” 

Low as the sound was, Alice caught the words. 

“ Poor child, poor Georgina, rather. Child, your 
trust in mankind is pathetic. Bear in mind that the 
amulet, used as I have directed you to use it, may 
ward off a terrible calamity from you. Now, they 
will be wondering in the dining-room what has 
become of you. You do not wear this little old- 
fashioned bracelet as an ornament.” She drew the 
silken sleeve well down over the circlet. “ It is our 
secret.” 

The young girl stood for a moment with her eyes 
downcast. 

Then hurriedly stooping, she whispered agi- 
tatedly : — 

“ He is coming, coming here to New York, 


A Talisman, 


123 


Mistress Alice. I have heard it to-day. Oh, you 
will be my friend ? You will help me? He loves me. 
Ah, I am happy, but frightened, so frightened ! ” 

‘‘Yes, I will be your friend, your never-failing 
friend. Now go." 

“ She is a pure, guileless child," Alice said to her- 
self, standing in the open door to watch the girl’s 
swift, graceful movements. “ The bauble may prove 
an amulet, if she will only show it to him. It will 
tell him that I am on his trail." 

From where she stood, she could just see the 
small, green, iron gate that gave ingress from the 
street to the little garden, with its lilac bushes, now 
flowerless and gloomy, overshadowing one or two 
garden seats. Suddenly from one of these iron 
benches she saw a figure rise. It looked like a 
woman. Slowly creeping along the path, taking ad- 
vantage of the bushy shadows, it crept onward, 
straight onward, in the direction of the stone wing. 
Throwing back the hood of a long waterproof cloak, 
and hastily passing a hand over her face as if 
thrusting back intruding hair, the sex of the object 
was revealed. It was a woman. Tall, pale, haggard, 
standing there with hands clasped nervously 
together, she took a long survey of the house. 
Then stealthily advancing yet a little closer, she 
leaned forward in a listening attitude. 

Sheltered by the darkness of the room behind her, 
Alice watched her motions with eager interest. In 
her own mind she immediately connected that pallid 
face and those haggard eyes with the woman she 
had failed to find at Chatham Place. Doubtless she 
had gone back, heard of her visit, and had come 
rather than send the messenger ordered. Should 
she challenge her by a question ? She was quite 
near enough to hear. The sound of a door slam- 
ming somewhere in the main building settled this 
point for her. The woman gave one startled 
exclamation, swiftly drew the hood of her water- 


124 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


proof cloak once more over her head, and turned to 
retrace her steps, not cautiously, furtively, nor 
stealthily,* this time, but with direct speed for the 
gate. 

To follow her was Alice’s first impulse, but as 
promptly as she acted on it, and as well as she knew 
the garden paths, and as straight as her course 
toward the gate was, she was only in time to see it 
swing back on its hasp, and to catch a glimpse of a 
tall form in a long black cloak walking rapidly town- 
ward down the avenue. 

The key was in the gate. She turned it in the 
lock, and dropped it into her pocket. Should she 
report the incident to Dr. Crocker ? No ! what for? 
It might cost the gardener his place for carelessness 
in leaving the premises at the mercy of tramps. 

“But if it was no tramp? If it was Amy 
Davenport ? ” 

Then, the closer she kept the incident to herself, 
the better for all. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


PUT TO THE TEST. 

The season was at its height. The thousand and 
one breathing-places on the seashore, among the 
mountains, in the interior, all around New York, 
where the more fortunate portions of humanity had 
been summering, poured their borrowed populations 
back into the city whence they had been drawn, and 
people whose real business in life was to extract as 
much pleasure out of it as possible, returned to that 


Put to the Test, 125 

business with a zest born of abstinence and reinvig- 
orated frames. 

Hotels, 'flats, apartments and boarding-houses once 
more rejoiced in the fullness of their parts. Where 
Broadway and Wall Street had swarmed with men, 
they were now jammed. Fourteenth Street, the 
women’s great street, flashed with costumes that 
vied with nature in the richness of her autumnal 
tints. Patti, Nilsson, Irving and Terry were all 
among the attractions that drew the swarming masses 
city-ward. 

Among the registered names on the books of the 
Windsor, were a party of young Englishmen who 
had come to winter in New York, after having spent 
the greater portion of the summer in Toronto. Col- 
onel Markam, always on the lookout for people of 
his own, as he fondly called all Englishmen, had cul- 
tivated them assiduously. In view of the fact that 
one of them was a lordling, Mrs. Markam had bit- 
terly regretted having sent Georgie to New York so 
hastily, and, when she heard of their plans for the 
winter, hastened to give them letters to her daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Fulkerson, unselfishly if a little pompously 
assuring them that her daughter’s position in New 
York society would insure them a speedier entree in 
its gay circles than they might otherwise attain. A 
private letter to Edith, in the meantime, set forth 
thp imperative duty involved in cultivating the lord- 
ling for Georgina’s benefit. 

Cards for Mrs. Fulkerson’s reception had been that 
lady’s acknowledgment of their letter of introduc- 
tion. This was the subject of an animated discus- 
sion which was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. 
David Duncan into the Windsor sitting-room. Dun- 
can had been “ one of the lot” in Toronto, and they 
hailed his appearance with delight. This man’s 
power of fascination had never deserted him, but 
held good for men as well as women. 

After inquiries about the sprained ankle, the sub- 


26 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 




ject of the reception in Park Avenue was resumed. 
It was immediately voted a bore that David should 
not have cards also. 

“ We can remedy it easily enough,” said the lord- 
ling, filliping the ash from his cigar ; “ I will write 
and request permission to bring a friend : one of 
our party just arrived. What say, Duncan ? ” 

Duncan said nothing. It was a daring step to 
take, and yet his preferences, as a refined man, 
were to obtain an interview with Georgina in this 
fashion, rather than by stealth, like a baker’s boy 
wooing a chambermaid. He walked deliberately to 
a mirror and surveyed himself. There was no doubt 
that he had changed tremendously in the last few 
years. At present, owing to his recent long con- 
finement, he was thinner and paler than ever before. 
His whiskers gone, and his mouth clothed with a 
long drooping mustache, altered his appearance 
radically. Moreover, his best chance lay in the very 
audacity of the thing, Mr. Fulkerson being a 
paralytic, it was not likely he would take any very 
active part in the festivities. In the confusion of such 
a crowd no one would have time to analyze his feat- 
ures very closely. Why should David Duncan not 
appear at Mrs. Fulkerson’s reception? 

“ Well, what do you say ? ” 

He turned his back upon the mirror with a light 
laugh. 

“ I was examining to see if I would be running 
any risk of playing Banquo at the banquet.” 

A trifle pale, but not ghostly, not in the slight- 
est,” said several friendly voices. 

“And I say furthermore, that if you were to ask 
for cards for Mr, David Duncan they would be 
refused ! ’* 

“ And why ? ” 

“ Bah ! because Mrs. Markam, the lady’s mother, 
paid me the compliment of thinking me dangerous 
enough to put her pretty daughter out of my reach. 


Put to the Test. 


127 


I am not a rich enough parti for the colonel’s 
daughter.” 

'‘By Jove, a romance,” exclaimed a quartette of 
gay young voices. “And you’ve never seen her 
since she left Canada?” 

“Never. But I’m here for that purpose alone. 
How it is to be managed, is not yet clear. By 
stratagem more than likely. The game is well worth 
the candle, however.” 

“ By George, I’ve half a mind to see you through 
this thing, Duncan. If I simply tell the lady I desire 
to bring a friend, what then ? ” 

“ The friend of an English lord would hardly be 
denied admittance,” Duncan answered with a slight 
curl of the lip, which fell harmlessly upon amiable 
Lord Dudley Wingate. 

So it was decided. 

Permission was asked, and granted, for Lord Win- 
gate to bring “a friend” with him to Mrs. Fulker- 
son’s reception, and Dennis Davenport, trusting to 
the luck that had never yet forsaken him, placidly 
prepared to make his appearance under the roof of 
the man he had so foully wronged. And so the 
eventful night came on apace. Nothing occurred 
to mar Mrs. Fulkerson’s bright anticipations. The 
elements had proved propitious, the decorators skill- 
ful, the caterers sublime, Mr. Fulkerson complaisant 
to the last degree. 

The spirit of youthful enjoyment had finally pre- 
vailed even in Georgina’s preoccupied soul, and 
when she was finally arrayed in the soft pink bro- 
cade, with its cobweb lace, and flowers tastefully 
arranged by Mistress Alice’s black-mittened fingers, 
she grew animated to a degree that filled Mrs. Ful- 
kerson’s measure of content brimming full. How 
could Edith divine that all this pretty flutter was 
because of Lord Wingate’s nameless friend? 

It is in the nature of introductions, even when 
the best intentions prevail, to leave names altogether 


128 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


conjectural. Small wonder then, that when Lord 
Wingate purposely slurred over his friend's name, it 
should have conveyed no meaning to his busy host- 
ess. If the gay young Englishman had suffered 
any qualms of conscience at this slight breach of 
trust toward his entertainers, they would all have 
vanished at the sight of Georgie’s tremulous happi- 
ness and her dimpling smiles as she was coolly appro- 
priated by Duncan for the first waltz. 

To Dr. Crocker the name of Duncan conveyed no 
meaning. He was Wingate’s friend, that was 
enough. Mr. Fulkerson, occupying his big chair in 
the shadow of an alcove, was enjoying the society 
of a few old associates, invited especially for his 
benefit. He had neither glance nor thought for the 
younger guests of the brilliant gathering. Only 
one pair of eyes rested on David Duncan intelli- 
gently. 

That afternoon the family group had stood for 
a little while together in the big parlors admiring 
the decorations. They were all there, but Alice. 
Mr. Fulkerson had been rolled in, too. 

“ I wish my good Mistress Alice could enjoy the 
fun with you this evening,” he said, unselfishly 
anxious that a little brightness might be cast upon 
her somber pathway. What a gray sort of life she 
leads ! Almost as bad as my own.” 

“ She might enjoy the dresses,” Mrs. Fulkerson 
answered with languid interest, “ although she is 
scarcely presentable in that old gray serge of her 
own, is she 1 ” 

To Ralph Crocker, knowing the secret of Alice’s 
disguise, this bland disposal of her, as an inferior who 
might be permitted to look upon the pageant from 
a respectful distance, was unreasonably irritating. 

“ Mistress Alice would hardly be content to take 
her place among the menials on this occasion, Edith. 
I should think she might have been invited as a 
guest. She would cast no discredit on your fete.” 


Put to the Test. 


129 


There was a ring of reproach in his voice that was 
not lost upon Edith, and she answered with an angry 
gleam in her handsome eyes : — 

“ I am sorry you did not declare your champion- 
ship of my husband’s nurse a little earlier in the 
action. I am afraid it is too late now. She would 
hardly accept an eleventh-hour atonement for my 
neglect.” 

“ I tell you how it can be arranged,” said Mr. 
Fulkerson animatedly. “ All that is necessary is to 
induce the kind creature to believe my comfort is 
involved. James shall place me in the alcove here, 
where I can command the whole scene, and where, 
if I find any of my old friends, I can have them in. 
Mistress Alice must be near me with a big fan, and 
we can discuss your butterflies from a philosophical 
point of view.” 

Kindly as this suggestion was, that unreasonable 
doctor grew only the more irritated. But he dared 
not say any thing more. He hoped she would refuse. 
She could easily do so. It was repugnant to think 
of her in the attitude of an attendant, when, given 
the same opportunities as the fashionable women 
who would fill those rooms that night, she could so 
far eclipse them all in beauty, grace and wit. 

That night, his most onerous duties as host over, 
he stole to the alcove to satisfy himself that she was 
not there. He was doomed to disappointment. 
There, by his uncle’s side, gently fanning him as 
she leaned on the tall back of his chair, was Mistress 
Alice. Demure, serene, dignified, dressed in a plain 
black silk, with a prim white ruffle about her throat. 

An angry flash came into his face at sight of her. 
She had most bitterly disappointed him. 

“ I had hoped you would have refused my uncle’s 
request ! This is not the position you should occupy,” 
he said almost sternly, standing beside her. 

She stepped back from the chair to answer in a 
low, pleading voice void of all resentment : — 


130 


Old Fulkersoris Clerk, 


“ Dear friend, do not judge me ignorantly. I had 
a powerful motive for wishing to see this fine 
company. It is well I am here. I need immediate 
advice. Will you come to the stone wing ten 
minutes from now? I ask this for Georgina’s sake.” 

“ It would be more readily granted for your own. 
I shall be there.” Then he turned away and went 
back to the crowded ball-room. 

He cast his eyes over the fluttering, fanning, smil- 
ing, sparkling crowd, where broadcloth and satin, 
jewels and white kids, gay cavaliers and coquettish 
dames, were all intermingled inextricably. Why 
should Alice have asked any thing of him, for Geor- 
gie’s sake ? He hoped that Miss Markam was enjoy- 
ing all this racket and splendid confusion more than 
he was. He liked the girl for her gentle dignity and 
shy sweetness. But her beauty had never stirred a 
pulse of his to quicker action. 

Where was she, by the way? Was Georgie in 
trouble of any sort? It was plainly his duty to find 
this much out. 

She was nowhere visible. ‘‘ No more,” he said 
smiling to himself, than is one straw in a whole 
confused heap.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A RASH PROMISE. 

Making slow progress through the crowd, with this 
object in view, he finally found himself on the thres- 
hold of the conservatory. “If not here, where?” 
he said, glancing about this time-honored retreat for 
lovers. 


A Rash Promise. 


131 

There, leaning against one of the vine-clad iron 
pillars, almost hidden from view by a tall potted 
oleander, stood Lord Wingate’s handsome friend, 
his gaze fixed intently upon some small object in 
his hand. He looked excessively pale, and was evi- 
dently suffering from some violent emotion. 

On a bench in front of him, with her white hands 
folded over an enormous bouquet, sat Georgina 
Markam looking up at him with shining, eager 
eyes. 

“The old, old story,” said Ralph softly to himself 
as he turned away to go to the stone wing by across 
passage from the conservatory. “ I can report her 
as well as could be expected to Mistress Alice.” 

White, agitated, and evidently ‘unnerved David 
Duncan was for a second only. Then calmly look- 
ing down into the pure, sweet face upraised to his, 
all illumined now with love for his own unworthy self, 
he asked in a voice which showed what ready com- 
mand this man had over his own nerves, even in the 
presence of the most tremendous peril, lightly swing- 
ing the bangle to and fro on his fore-finger : — 

“ Where did you get this ancient bauble ? ” 
Georgie executed a ravishing pout : — 

“Ancient ? why I thought it must be very mod- 
ern. Too modern for me in my Dominion seclusion 
to have ever heard of such a pretty golden conceit.” 

“Ancient it is, nevertheless, as antiquity goes in 
this rushing world. This was the popular style of 
gage d' amour some ten or more years ago. I am 
sure the stately Mr. Fulkerson never stooped to woo 
his handsome wife in any such boyish fashion as to 
bind her with a locked bangle.” 

“ No, oh, no. The conceit is altogether too pretty 
for my solid brother-in-law. But — ” 

“ But — ” he left his place by the pillar and seated 
himself beside her. “ But — ” a daring arm stole be- 
hind the slender waist, and the low-spreading 
branches of a swamp palmetto kindly screened arm 


132 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


and waist, “ my darling wants to know if I can meet 
this test. If I can tell her what the little flat box 
contains and if I can find a key to match this 
tiny key-hole.” 

“Yes.” She leaned forth in her eagerness, her 
hands clasped together passionately. Poor foolish 
child ! Poor fluttering heart ! Poor innocent vic- 
tim ! 

Alice had erred in supposing the sight of this bau- 
ble would frighten Dennis Davenport from pursuit of 
his object. She had never fathomed the depths of 
his wickedness, nor the height of his cool daring. 

“ I will do both on one condition.” 

“And that is? ” 

“ That you will tell me how this came into your 
possession.” 

His eyes were fastened upon the box where the 
letters D. D. were intwined in a golden arabesque. 
That this was the bracelet he had clasped about 
Alice Gregory’s white arm in the days of his short 
wooing he felt quite positive. That his haughtily 
upright wife could be aware of his devotion to this 
innocent girl, and not denounce him publicly and 
fearlessly, he was equally positive, though by the aid 
of what magic his wife, deserted in New York, could 
have learned of his love affair in Canada, was 
thoroughly mystifying. The only theory with a 
basis of reason in it, was that Alice had been re- 
duced to the extremity of the pawn-broker, and in 
some roundabout way the trinket she had sold had 
passed into Georgie’s keeping. How curiously 
things brought themselves about ! 

Georgina’s soft voice broke in upon his abstrac- 
tion. 

“You should not impose conditions. Love knows 
no conditions.” 

“You are right, love knows no conditions. It 
recognizes only its own masterful need. You love 
me, ah, child, say that you do ! ” 


A Rash Promise, 


33 


He drew her closer to him. She could almost 
feel the quick pulsing of his heart as he whispered 
passionately : — 

“Georgie, I need you. I must have you, my pure 
white love. I can not claim you openly, for your 
sister is in league with your mother to separate us. 
You will come to me to-morrow, my sweet. Four 
blocks from here is a small brown-stone church, with 
ivy clambering over its walls. You will come to me 
there about dusk, and there we will put an end for- 
ever to this miserable suspense, this agony of living 
apart. Once back in Canada as my wife, all will be 
well. With your father as a loving mediator between 
us, your mother must soon yield." 

His arms were about her. He was pleading for 
her happiness as well as his. She loved him. Oh ! 
so much better than it was possible for her ever to 
love any thing else 1 What was the wrath of a mother 
by comparison with wounding a heart that was so 
entirely her own ? Her father would not chide. He 
loved David. What was there in all the heartless 
gayety of Edith’s life ? What was life worth, if not 
shared with David Duncan ? She was no child to 
change lovers as she would her dolls. Once and for- 
ever she had given her heart, given it to this man, 
in whom she, pure child, saw no guilt. The con- 
flict between love and duty was tremendous. 

He watched the paling and flushing of her cheek 
with amorous eyes. He watched the love light glow- 
ing in her tender eyes, with a passion of covetous- 
ness. 

“You are mine already in the sight of God ! You 
have been mine ever since that kiss of consecration 
I pressed upon your lips months ago! We love each 
other ! To-morrow — say the words after me, my 
sweet ! To-morrow you will give me the right to 
take you away from all the world, to make our hap- 
piness in' a world qf our own. To-morrow, say it, 
my own ! ’’ 


134 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 

“To-morrow,” her voice was low and passion- 
laden. 

“ At the hour of five ! ” he dictated, rather than 
pleaded. 

“ At the hour of five ! ” 

“ At the brown-stone Church of the Messiah ! ” 

And once more, her voice growing steadier as 
the Rubicon was past, Georgina repeated the words 
after him, until she had giveaall he asked : — 

“You will not fail me?” 

“ I have never broken my given word yet,” said 
Georgina, with gentle resentment in her eyes and 
voice. 

David Duncan heaved a sigh of relief. For a mo- 
ment they were both silent, busied with tumultuous 
thoughts touching the daring step to which they 
were committed. He spoke first, in a lighter vein : — 

“ Now, then, I will be good to you, and show you 
that, hard as your test is, I can comply with it. It is 
not difficult to guess that one half of a broken six- 
pence is in this box. Broken sixpences are presumed 
to have some mystical bearing on the current of 
true love — ” 

“Yes, but you were to match the sixpence and 
find the key for the lock,” she said with mock insist- 
ence, for what mattered tests now ? 

“Who says that I must ? ” It was shrewdly done. 

“ Mistress Alice.” 

He started perceptibly at the name. A pallor 
spread over his handsome face, but Georgina was 
too nervous and excited herself to marvel at agita- 
tion in another. 

“ There ! I promised the poor old thing I would 
not tell who gave me the bracelet ! ” 

“ Poor old thing.” His breath came more freely. 

“ Yes, she is my brother-in-law’s nurse. She is a 
queer little old woman, very plain, with a slight 
hump on her back. It seems funny to think of her 
as ever having had a romance. She gave me the 


A Rash Promise. 


135 


bracelet. She said she had no use for it, that it had 
been given to her to tell fortunes with. She talks 
for all the world like a crone.” 

‘‘ Which no doubt she is,” said Dennis lightly. 
“ One moment, darling.” 

He clasped the bracelet about her arm. As he 
did so, he touched a spring whose location none 
knew better than himself. The box flew open and 
revealed the broken sixpence. 

Has your knight done his lady’s bidding? ” 

Georgina’s face was rosy with triumph. And yet 
remorse touched him not. So easy it is once a man 
treads the path that leads away from virtue and 
honor, to add sin to error, crime to peccadillo. 

And at that moment when David Duncan was 
pressing a fond farewell kiss upon the girl’s trem- 
bling lips. Mistress Alice was standing before Dr. 
Crocker, nervously intwining her long, slender 
fingers : — 

“ I will tell you why I condescended to appear at 
that gay scene at Mr. Fulkerson’s desire. I have 
reason to suspect that the Canada lover whom 
Georgina was sent here to get rid of is Dennis 
Davenport, my own husband ! ” 

“ My God ! Is such a villainy possible ? What 
gave rise to such suspicion ? ” 

“ Her sister accidentally threw down a desk from 
which his picture fell. She knows him as David 
Duncan.” 

“ And what then ? ” 

“ She, pure, innocent child, told me he was coming 
to New York. I knew the bold audacity of the man, 
to believe he would not hesitate to seek her here, 
under the roof of the man he defrauded. I knew, 
he would rely upon the changes of five years, and 
the confusion incident to such a large crowd, for 
protection. Of course, he informed himself of Mr. 
Fulkerson’s condition before he came here.” 

“ Came here ? ” said Ralph, trembling with wrath. 


136 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


** Do you mean to say he has actually been here, 
here in this house ? ” 

“ All the evening ! I detected him as soon as 
he entered the parlors. He has been devoted in his. 
attentions to Miss Markam all the evening. He is 
tall and very graceful, wears a long, dark mustache, 
and close-cropped dark hair.” 

“ But, my dear Mistress Alice, you are laboring 
under a delusion. That is a friend of Lord Win- 
gate’s. His name is Duncan, I admit, but the 
likeness to my uncle’s defaulting clerk must be 
accidental. This young man is evidently very 
much in love with Edith’s sister. Indeed, I left 
them in the conservatory when I came here.” 

“ I am not mistaken. If you wish to prove me 
so, or, if you do not wish to see Georgina Markam 
made miserable for life, go and bring that man 
here to me. With you alone for a witness, I will 
unmask him. I could have sought him otherwise. 
But I wanted for witness one who would spare me, 
while crushing him.” 

Her lips quivered. The temptation to draw her 
within the shelter of his arms, and comfort her for 
althe sorrow and humiliation that had weighted her 
young life so heavily, was very great. To others 
she was still gray, demure Mistress Alice. To him 
she was a woman to be admired for her heroism, 
pitied for her sorrows, and loved for her own true 
self. 

“Go, go bring him here. You will not find Mis- 
tress Alice when you come back with Lord Win- 
gate’s friend. You will find Dennis Davenport’s 
outraged wife, ready to confront him with his guilt, 
and to drive him from the house he has dared 
pollute with his vile presence.” 

“ But should this be a great mistake on your 
part ? ” 

“Trust me! Mrs. Fulkerson’s guest shall suffer no 
rudeness at my hand. I simply ask you to bring 


Rash Endeavor. 


137 


him here, here to your consulting room. A cigar for 
a pretext. A girl’s honor for the text.” 

There was no withstanding her fervid earnestness. 

I will go. I still think your troubles have made 
you imaginative. But should it prove that you are 
right, then it will go hard with me if I do not make 
him repent this night’s work and curse the hour 
that gave him birth.” 

His eyes gleamed dangerously. 

“ Think what you please of my imagination, 
only bring Lord Wingate’s friend here to me.” 

And he turned away to do her bidding. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


RASH ENDEAVOR. 

# 

Nothing doubting that Dr. Crocker would return 
to her in a few moments bringing with him the 
man who had been derelict to every call of honor 
and duty, Alice awaited their coming in a frame of 
mind easily imagined. The heat of her own small 
room seemed oppressive. She stationed herself in 
the doorway of the consulting-room. She lowered 
the gas with a motive. The men should enter a 
dimly-lighted room, and she would turn the light 
full on Dennis’s face as soon as he was fairly in her 
presence. Her whole form trembled in unison with 
her perturbed spirit. Stepping out upon the 
balcony, she became aware of a presence other than 
her own. The sound of a cautious footfall upon 
the gravel outside was quite distinct. It had 
evidently passed by the spot where she was stand- 


138 Old Fulkersons Clerk, 

ing, and was now going in the direction of the steps 
that led up into the room usually occupied by Mr. 
Fulkerson. 

Some one evidently intent on robbery, she conclud- 
ed, and leaned over the stone balustrade the bet- 
ter to catch a view of the intruder before making any 
alarm. 

A long line of light from the illuminated alcove 
fell across this portion of the gravel walk. Unless 
the person, whoever it might be, should make a 
detour, inevitably he or she must come within that 
circle of light before many seconds. Perhaps, after 
all, it was some one of Mrs. Fulkerson’s guests enjoy- 
ing the cool darkness of the garden as a relief from 
the over-heated, over-crowded rooms in yonder. But 
why that excessive caution in every footfall ? 
Presently the broad line of light was reached. A 
.woman’s form stood revealed in it. She came to a 
halt in the flower-bed that lay at the base of the 
alcove window. Without tiptoeing she could look 
upon the brilliant gathering within. Alice watched 
her with eager interest now. Pushing back the 
hood of her long waterproof cloak, the woman flat- 
tened her face against the glass of the window and 
stood motionless for a full moment. Suddenly she 
raised her right arm, and shook its clinched fist in 
the direction of the alcove. There was no longer 
any doubt in Alice’s mind as to her identity. It 
was the hapless Amy Davenport, the wretched, 
restless mother of her own unhappy husband. Was 
Nemesis indeed brooding over that gay scene? 
And where would the blow fall heaviest ? 

Every instinct of Alice Gregory’s nature was 
toward mercy and justice. Howsoever she had been 
wronged by the son of this wanderer, her womanly 
soul revolted against allowing the forlorn mother to 
be left any longer at the mercy of the world. She 
would intercept her, as she turned from the window, 
speak kindly to her, and when Dr. Crocker should 


Rash Endeavor. 


139 


return with Dennis, she would hand his unhappy 
mother over to his care. He would curse her for it, 
but she would bless her for showing to her doting 
eyes the features of her idolized son. If Dennis 
cast her off, Ralph would care for her. 

Full of this merciful intent, she softly descended 
the few steps that intefvened between her and the 
gravel walk, and stood there awaiting the woman’s 
return. She had not long to wait. Presently, gestic- 
ulating wildly and muttering to herself, she turned 
from the alcove, and retraced her steps along the 
walk. Alice caught the wild words that fell in a 
hissing torrent from her lips before the woman was 
near enough for her to lay a detaining hand upon 
her : — 

“ I saw him go in there. I know they’ve got my 
boy in there. He looked so handsome and so fine, 
I wouldn’t shame him by asking him to kiss his 
shabby mother. But it’s dark out here, nobody 
would know. Oh Dennie, Dennie ! how the mother’s 
heart in me aches for the lad. I would insist on a 
kiss. Maybe I’m not fit to touch his dear lips, but” 
— from wistful sadness she was hurled by the lava 
stream of her own passions to vindictive rage — 
“ they shall burn for it, they shall burn for it. Not 
now. Wait till they’re all in bed ! Wait till my 
bonny boy is out from that doomed roof ! I am 
ready for you, Telfair Fulkerson! I am ready for 
ye, Telfair Fulkerson’s gay wife ! Ay, but I’m ready 
for ye, all that feast and dance, while I moan and 
tramp the world, a homeless wretch ! ” 

Pausing where she stood, she thrust one long, 
hag-like arm aloft in impotent rage, and Alice could 
see a small dark object in it. 

“ Matches ! Good, fresh, true lucifers ! A blaze 
in every tip ! Ay, Amy will waken you all in the 
morning, dears.” With long strides she resumed 
her walk. 

My poor woman.” 


140 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


Alice laid a firm hand upon her long cloak, as the 
woman came within her reach. Her voice was 
infinitely soothing, but her clasp was rigid. Startled 
into momentary quietness, the woman stood motion- 
less and dumb. 

“ My poor woman, come with me. It is dark and 
cold out here. I want to be your friend. No doubt, 
you’ve had no supper? ” 

“Supper, supper? Eat of Telfair Fulkerson’s 
bread, when he’s driven my boy to the bad ? Let 
go of me ! Let go of me, girl, before I choke you ! ” 

Her claw-like fingers fastened about the hand that 
detained her. With ungentle force she strove to 
loosen Alice’s firm clasp. She gasped and hissed in 
growing fury. 

Alice knew her position to be one of great per- 
sonal peril. To cry aloud for help was her first 
impulse, but in the alert and crowded condition of 
the house, it might bring hundreds to the spot to 
hear the unbridled ravings of this poor creature. If 
Ralph would only come back to her! With or with- 
out the man she had sent him for, if he would only 
appear on the balcony in this moment of her great 
need I Her one desire was to retain her grasp of the 
woman’s clothes, until she should see or hear him. 

“ I assure you, I mean you no harm,” she said 
earnestly ; “ do be quiet, and come with me. See, 
my room is just yonder up those few steps. I want 
to make you warm and comfortable. I am your 
friend.” 

“Friend, friend! Amy Davenport has no friend! 
Every body wants her dead ! Every body calls her 
crazy! Every body — girl, fool, woman, let go of 
me ! ” 

Alice only tightened her clasp with both hands. 
That this woman had dangerous designs against the 
house, there could be no doubt. Once out of her 
hold, and she might fire the premises, while Alice 
had gone to summon help. The woman’s strength 


Rash Endeavor, 


141 

was treble her own. She was at that moment bury- 
ing her nails in the soft flesh of the hands that tried 
desperately to detain her. The strains of merry 
music and the sound of the dancers’ feet floated 
mockingly out to Alice, where she stood measuring 
her feeble strength against a lunatic. She called 
aloud for help, but no one heard ! Would Ralph 
never come back ? 

“ Fool, fool ! let go of me ! ” 

Suddenly desisting from her efforts to loosen the 
clinging clasp upon her cloak, the maniac fastened 
her long, skinny fingers about Alice’s slender throat. 
Tight, tighter, tighter yet ! The firm hands lost 
their hold upon the cloak. With a fiendish laugh of 
triumph the woman perceived the relaxed hold, 
pressed her murderous fingers yet tighter about the 
slim, white throat ; pressed her victim backward and 
downward, until with a heavy thud Alice fell sense- 
less upon the gravel at her feet. 

With a long-drawn sigh Amy Davenport stood 
over the prostrate form of the woman who would 
have been her friend. She listened for some sound 
of returning consciousness. None came. Not a 
quiver of a muscle to show that life was not extinct. 
What did she care ? Who would care if she were 
dead? She gathered her disordered garments 
closely about her. She had lost the box of matches 
upon which so much depended. She felt about the 
gravel for them. Her groping fingers touched the 
open box. A noise on the balcony startled her. 
She sprang to her feet, grinding the pile of matches 
under her heel as she turned suddenly to fly. A 
pale, blue phosphorescent light flashed for a second 
over Alice’s pallid face and still form. With a 
shriek of terror the woman fled. That pale, blue 
flame had caught Dr. Crocker’s eye, as he stood won- 
dering over Alice’s disappearance. He had come 
back to tell her that Lord Wingate’s friend was 
nowhere to be found. Had that shriek come from 


142 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


her? Still uncomprehending, but knowing some- 
thing to be dreadfully wrong, he cleared the low 
steps at a bound, and stooping over, felt rather than 
saw the form he was in search of. Kneeling by her 
side, he raised the helpless head in his arms and 
called upon her frantically to speak, to tell him what 
it all meant, who had done it ? 

With closed eyes and mute lips she rested against 
his bosom. Lifting her in his arms as if she had 
been a child, he carried her back to her room, and 
laid her upon the bed. Hastily turning up the gas 
and seizing a pitcher of ice-water, he returned to the 
bed. The slender white throat which poor Allie had 
always muffled to the ears, because it had such a 
smooth, girlish look, lay bare before him, bruised 
and blackened with the marks of brutal fingers 
clearly defined on its ivory surface. Ralph rashly 
found a solution to this quickly-acted tragedy : — 

“ Accursed scoundrel ! He discovered her in my 
absence, and this is the way he tried to silence those 
accusing lips ! ” 

That Dennis Davenport had, in some way unex- 
plained yet, found out Alice’s proximity, and made 
a foul assault upon her at the very moment he was 
seeking him among Mrs. Fulkerson’s guests, was the 
only conclusion he could come to. 

But to restore Alice to consciousness was then his 
only care. He did not ring for assistance, for the 
story of Mistress Alice’s disguise must not transpire. 
Nor did he feel the need of help. The stone wing 
was too far away for him to dread any inopportune 
intrusion. He made several trips to his consulting- 
room for remedies, before he had the relief of seeing 
Alice’s soft eyes open once more intelligently. 

“ Is she gone ?” she raised herself suddenly from 
the pillows to ask, then fell back with a moan of 
pain. Evidently her mind was wandering. Ralph 
laid a cool hand gently on her forehead as he said : — 
You are not to talkyet. Mistress Alice. You have 


Rash Endeavor, 


143 


met with an accident. When you can tell me all 
about it, depend upon it the guilty shall suffer.” 

“Oh, no, no, nothing must be done! Poor thing, 
she did not know what she was doing. It was a 
poor lunatic who wandered into the garden. But” 
— with a sudden recollection of the woman’s threats 
— “see to it that the house is watched to-night. I 
will help do it myself.” She sprang from the bed, 
ran to the door, and looked excitedly about her. 
“ She threatened to burn the house down. Watch 
it, watch her.” 

“ The shock has been tremendous,” said Ralph to 
himself, drawing her hand under his arm, and lead- 
ing her back to the bed, talking soothingly all the 
while : 

“You are to do just as I tell you, to-night, Mistress 
Alice. You are to lie still; you are to take this 
nasty dose fpr me, and you are to go to sleep imme- 
diately. I am a tyrant with all my patients. They 
have to succumb sooner or later. Now, then, this 
will set us up.” 

He stood before her now with a glass containing 
a dark liquid. Smiling up into his face with a gen- 
tle gratitude, she took the glass and drained the 
liquid. 

“Watch the house!” she said drowsily, and pres- 
ently she was sleeping heavily. Ralph then sum- 
moned one of the grooms to watch the stone wing, 
and, with his heart surging wrathfully, he resumed 
his distasteful duties as host by proxy. 

He longed for the hour of reckoning. 


144 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A FIERCE AWAKENING. 

Dr. Crocker resumed his position as host by 
proxy, internally consumed with wrath against Den- 
nis Davenport for his presumed attack upon his un- 
fortunate wife. “No doubt, the dastard was lying in 
wait, while she was talking to me about him. Once 
let this senseless ball come to a close, and I will sift 
this matter to the bottom, let suffer who may.” 

With this burden of anger and anxiety hidden 
away under a smiling exterior, he exerted himself 
for the benefit of Mrs. Fulkerson’s guests so un- 
tiringly that when the last carriage full of persistent 
late-stayers finally departed, a sense of complete 
success remained with the weary givers of the crush. 

The lights were turned off, the windows closed. 
The house, so lately a-glitter, grew dark and noise- 
less as the tomb. Too tired even to discuss the 
events of the evening, Mrs. Fulkerson and Georgina 
separated promptly for their own rooms, the one to 
reflect complacently on the brilliant triumph of the 
fete, the other to realize at nervous leisure the full 
import of the rash promise she had given to David 
Duncan for the morrow, given, and intended to keep. 
Ralph stole once more to the little end room in the 
stone wing to assure himself that Alice still slept, 
and that the groom he had stationed on the balcony 
was at his post. 

She was still sleeping. He turned from her bed- 
side with a pitying sigh. “ She will know no more 
of trouble until to-morrow’s sun comes to awaken 
her. And then the phantom of the crazy woman 
whom she thinks she saw will have vanished.” 

Scarcely an hour before the dawn would break! 

With reckless disregard for finery that had cost 


A Fierce Awakening, 


145 


Edith so much anxious forethought, Georgina 
hastily undressed, and wrapping a dressing-gown 
about her, flung herself upon a lounge to sleep, if 
possible, and forget the terrors that beset the coming 
day. 

Dawn already. She was sure she had not been 
asleep ; but that rosy light flooding the room and 
reflected from every space of its pink walls must be 
the sunlight of that momentous day. She sprang 
to her feet. Dawn ! Surely that was not the placid, 
slow-coming light of day. She flung wide the shut- 
ters, looked, screamed, fled. The house was wrapped 
in a sheet of flame. 

Two hours later, Alice Gregory, pallid, but reso- 
lute, kneeled by a stretcher whereon lay a mus- 
cular form writhing in mute agony. It was Ralph 
Crocker, blackened with smoke, injured, helpless as 
an infant. He had displayed the energy of ten men 
in rescuing the sleeping family from their deadly 
peril. To put his uncle in a place of safety had been 
his first care. His second, to save Alice. Scarcely 
had he cleared the burning balcony with her in his 
arms, only half aroused from the stupor of the nar- 
cotic he had administered, when the columns of the 
balcony, their support burned away, fell with a 
crash, one of them striking him on the arm and 
breaking it just above the elbow. The pallor of 
exhaustion overcame him, and he sank to the ground 
with a groan of mortal pain. 

Why did you come for me ? Why did you care 
to save my valueless life? Oh, this is too great a 
price to pay for safety ! ” she moaned, tenderly laying 
her hand on the broken arm. 

“ Hush, my darling.’’ 

The words fluttered from his lips clearly and 
slowly. Even in that moment of terror and con- 
fusion she caught them, drank them in, and was 
strengthened by them. He did not lose conscious- 
ness, but his suffering was acute. Making him as 


Old Fulkerson s Clerk. 


146 

comfortable as possible where he lay, she quickly 
found her way to the street by the garden gate, and 
summoned the ambulance always in attendance on 
such occasions. Four men with the stretcher fol- 
lowed her lead to the stone wing. A neighbor’s 
house had been thrown open to the family. Mr. 
Fulkerson, Georgina and her sister were already 
there. The men mentioned the house. Must they 
take him there? 

“ No ! To Bellevue Hospital ! ” Ralph gave the 
peremptory order himself. 

Alice kneeled by the stretcher and whispered : — 

“ Say that I may come to see you ! ” 

“Otherwise it would be hard to bear. To- 
morrow ! " 

“ No, to-day. See ! It is day. God bless 

t >> 

you ! 

For a brief second her hand rested on his brow. 
Then she motioned to the men to move on with 
their burden. She turned away to seek Mr. Fulker- 
son. When she entered the house where the 
refugees were sheltered, she was told that Mrs. 
Fulkerson was in a state bordering on hysteria, that 
her sister and the lady of the house were plying her 
with remedies, that Mr. Fulkerson was asking un- 
ceasingly for his nurse and his nephew. Would she 
go into the back-parlor, where she would find the 
paralytic and his man ? 

The old man’s anxious face beamed with joy as 
Mistress Alice’s familiar form appeared in the door- 
way. 

“Thank God you are not hurt. I knew Ralph 
would look after you. Come here. Mistress Alice, 
and let me see if I can get out of you any rational 
theory on this disastrous termination of dear 
madam’s ball. The idiots about me have tried to 
account for it in ten thousand ways, not one of 
which has a grain of common-sense or probability 
in it. I’m sorry for the women. They’ve lost their 


A Fierce Awakening, 147 

gew-gaws, but the insurance covers every thing 
else.” 

Alice turned to James with her usual quiet tone 
of authority : — 

“ I shall stay with Mr. Fulkerson a little while, 
James. No doubt, you would rather be out yonder 
in the excitement.” 

Nothing loth, James took his immediate depart- 
ure. Alice placed a chair by the invalid’s side for 
herself, and said : — 

“ I am glad to see you so unmoved by this catas- 
trophe, sir ! ” 

“Unmoved? There’s nothing to be going into 
hysterics over. I’ve never liked that place. I’ve 
lost nothing financially. I shall now have a good 
excuse to move out on the farm. But the devil of 
it is, I can’t fathom it. Why was it done ? Who 
did it ? I can’t guess that ! ” 

“ It does not need any guessing. I know who 
did it, and why it was done.” 

Then Alice told the story of her encounter 
with Amy Davenport, of her own exhausted condi- 
tion, of her fatal slumber, and of the neglected 
warning. 

“I cannot yet understand,” she said in conclusion, 
“ how Dr. Crocker failed to heed my warning and 
watch the house.” 

“ Damn the house,” said the old man savagely. 
“What is it to the risk you were running for us, 
while we were all fiddling and dancing and smirking 
inside?” Then his voice and face grew softer. 
“ Poor Amy ! Poor, hapless Amy ! She must be 
found and cared for. Who would have thought her 
capable of such a fiendish act ? Ah, Mistress Alice, 
the way of the transgressor is indeed hard. I am 
paying a life-long penalty for the error of my youth. 
I have no one but you, my gentle nurse, to help me 
in this matter. This unfortunate creature must be 
found and placed in security.” 


148 


Old Fulkersons Clerk, 


Alice clasped her hands in nervous irritation. 
She had entered this room fully prepared to termin- 
ate her engagement as Mr. Fulkerson’s attendant. 
Presently, his nephew would be coming home from 
the hospital well, and it was no longer possible for 
her and him to remain under the same roof. In the 
extremity of their common peril, words had escaped 
them, feelings had found vent, that could neither be 
recalled nor forgotten. They could never be to 
each other what they had been before the excite- 
ment of the night just gone. Nor could they ever 
be any thing more. The homelessness of the Ful- 
kersons would afford her an excellent opportunity 
to terminate the connection. And now, here was 
this poor old man appealing to her for aid such as 
no one but she could render. At least, she would 
make one effort for freedom : — 

“The proper way to find this woman, Mr. Ful- 
kerson, would be to put the matter into a detective’s 
hands. I would gladly do all that I could, but I 
can do nothing. Moreover,’’ — her voice grew un- 
steady here, — “ I must leave you myself. I feel 
the need of rest. Dr. Crocker was so unfortunate as 
to injure his right arm during his heroic efforts at 
the fire, but he will be confined for a few days only. 
Dear Mr. Fulkerson, don’t think unkindly of me if 
I leave you at once. I must go. I feel as if I were 
going to be ill.” 

The old man looked at her in angry surprise for a 
moment, then turned his face away in silent bitter- 
ness. 

“You will say that you are not angry with me, 
will you not, sir? ” 

“I will say that it is just like a woman to desert 
one in- his darkest hour of need,” answered the old 
man with brutal injustice. “ If you are sick, of 
course I would not have you stay. But will you 
come back ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 


A Fierce Awakening. 


149 


“ Never? " 

“ Never.” 

Then his resentment broke all bounds : — 

“You are at liberty to leave this moment. You 
have been a satisfactory attendant, but I suppose 
another, just as good, may be found. I have nothing 
more to say.” 

The tears started to Alice’s eyes. She turned 
away to hide them. He would repent of this harsh 
injustice presently, but it was hard to bear it even 
for a second. 

At this juncture, James entered in a state of in- 
tense excitement. 

“ They’ve found ’em, sir. They’ve found 'em, 
Mistress Alice.” 

“ Found whom, you blockhead ? ” 

“The ’cendiary, sir. Yes, sir, they have that. 
There ain’t no room for doubt. They’ve found a 
woman a chucklin’ and a laughin’ to herself under 
the trees in the garden, and when the pleeceman 
asked her what she found so funny, she laughed 
again and said, ’cause it done her so much good to 
burn ’em all out like rats. They’ve took her to the 
lock-up, sir. Crazy as a loon, and no mistake about 
it.” 

The paralytic followed every word the man said 
with startled eyes and alert attention. The muscles 
of his strongly marked face twitched convulsively. 
But no words came to his relief. Alice turned, and 
saw the struggle of his soul limned in every feature. 
Coming close up to him, she said in her gentlest ac- 
cents : — 

“ You shall not have it in your power to say that 
I deserted you in your darkest hour of need. Lay 
your commands upon me, and I will execute them 
before resigning my position.” 

A look of intense gratitude rested on her face for 
a second, then the old man leaned back in his chair 
and closed his eyes wearily. 


150 Old Fulkersons Clerk. 

Alice knew he would open them presently, and 
tell her precisely what he wanted her to do. She 
motioned to James. He gladly obeyed her for a 
second time. 

Rousing himself after a little, Mr. Fulkerson 
pointed to the drawer attached to the seat of his 
chair, and gave her the key that unlocked it. She 
knew that meant he wanted his tin cash-box. She 
placed it upon his knees. From a chamois bag he 
took five twenty-dollar gold pieces. He extended 
them to her. 

“Manage it for me as quietly as you can. Get her 
into an asylum. Tell the authorities that Mr. Ful- 
kerson objects to the incarceration of an irrespon- 
sible lunatic. They need not detain her for exam- 
ination, for he desires none made. I have neither 
the strength nor the ability to act in this matter. 
With God’s help I will expiate the folly of my 
youth by meting out more than justice to all in- 
volved in it. If I knew where her son was, I should 
give him another chance.” 

“ Only to be deceived once more. I do not be- 
lieve so much as the germ of good was in his soul.” 

“ What do you know about Dennis Davenport?” 

“I judge of him by his ingratitude toward you, 
and his monstrous indifference to his mother. But 
him we can discuss later on. His mother is lying at 
the mercy of brutal officials. There is no knowing 
what wild stories she may be telling and they be- 
lieving. When I come back to you, Amy Daven- 
port will be out of harm’s way.” 

All unconscious that she had uttered the words of 
prophecy, Alice slipped quietly out of the house 
where Mr. Fulkerson’s nurse had scarcely attracted 
a single glance. 


The Bitter E^td, 


151 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE BITTER END. 


Shivering and moaning on an unclean couch in a 
prisoner’s cell, an hour later, Alice Gregory found 
the unfortunate woman whose uncanny glee at her 
triumph over her enemies had been speedily swal- 
lowed up in the rigors of a congestive chill. 

All night long, patient and resolute, Amy Daven- 
port had remained hidden among the somber 
shadows in the Fulkerson garden, biding her time, 
clutching in her hand the half-dozen matches she had 
rescued before her flight. With the proverbial cun- 
ning of the lunatic she had reasoned it all out within 
her poor, distorted brain. If she fired the house 
while all those people were there, no great harm 
would be done. So many hands to the rescue would 
leave nothing to the greedy flames. At last, the 
moment for action came. Her heart leaped for joy 
as the flames of her own lighting flashed heaven- 
ward against the gray sky of dawn. She had capered 
and chuckled and hurrahed in the excess of her ma- 
niacal glee, until the attention of two policemen was 
attracted toward her. Then they had taken her 
away and locked her up (still trembling with the ex- 
citement of her evil triumph) in the cold, damp cell 
where Alice afterward found her. Exposure to the 
night air had already predisposed her to the violent 
attack which obliterated all her wicked exultation, 
and left her livid and moaning, conscious of nothing 
but her own tortured anatomy. 

When Alice was admitted to the cell, she stood 
over the unclean couch and called her by name. 

Amy fastened a pair of startled eyes upon the 
placid face above her, and said in a voice from which 


152 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


all excitement had died out forever, slowly and 
monotonously : — 

“ Are you a sister ? What do you want here ? 
Aren’t you the woman I tried to kill last night? I 
thought I had killed you. You wanted to keep me 
from burning Telfair Fulkerson’s house down. But 
I did it, you see. Yes, I did it, but the waiting out 
all night made me cold. Oh, I’m cold yet. Will I 
ever get warm again? ” 

Alice stooped and added her own shawl to the 
scant covering that was tremulous with the woman’s 
shivering. She assumed her most soothing tones as 
she said : — 

“And yet Mr. Fulkerson wants to be your friend. 
See, he has sent money by me foryou to be taken to 
a nice home and properly cared for.” 

“ Curse his money ! Curse him ! I want my boy! 
I want Dennis 1 What has he done with my son, my 
beautiful boy ? ” 

Her voice rose to a shrill wail. She sprang to her 
feet, but fell back once more upon the couch, moan- 
ing with pain and chattering unintelligibly. Alice 
hastily summoned the prison surgeon. 

“It is a second congestive chill,” he said oracularly, 
but quite indifferently. “ The next one will kill 
her.” 

“ Poor thing, poor, unhappy woman 1 But better 
so, far better so.” 

“Undoubtedly far better so,” said the surgeon 
callously, as he mechanically applied the usual reme- 
dies and restoratives. More than an hour elapsed 
before any articulate sound came from the blue, 
pinched lips of the sufferer. Then, in a low, sane 
whisper, she said, pointing one skinny finger at the 
surgeon: — 

“ Send him away. I want to tell you something.” 

Alice courteously dismissed the all-willing doctor 
and bent over the couch, where, with wide-open eyes, 
Amy Davenport lay watching her. 


The Bitter End. 


153 


“ My son, Dennis Davenport ! I know he is in 
town. I saw him go into that house. I am going to 
die. I want to see him. Could you find him for 
me? Sweet lady, you’ve forgiven so much, you 
must be good. I don’t want to make him ashamed 
to own his mother. But just let me see him. Just 
tell him a poor sick woman wants to see him.” 

“ But you must not think you are going to die,” 
said Alice, soothingly. “ We are going to take you 
to the country, where you will get well.” 

“No, no, no! I’m going fast. I’m not sorry. 
Nobody’ll be sorry. But, oh, bring me my son 
Dennis. Nobody shall know it was his mother he 
went to the jail to see. Fetch him, fetch him, before 
Igo!” 

Alice promised, summoned an attendant, called 
for writing material, and wrote as follows : — 

“Your presence is demanded immediately by a 
dying woman. The bearer of this will guide you to 
her. At your peril refuse this request. 

“Alice Gregory.” 

Addressing it to Mr. David Duncan, she gave it 
to the messenger, with instructions to examine the 
registers of the best hotels in town, beginning with 
the most expensive, until he found the name on that 
note, then wait to conduct the gentleman there. 
This done, and a fee large enough to insure fidelity 
put into his hand, she returned to the dying 
woman : — 

“ I have sent for him ; but as we do not know just 
where to find him, you must be very patient. You 
had better try to sleep away the time of waiting. It 
will make it so much shorter, you know.” 

“ No. I’ve little enough time left not to waste it 
in sleep. Maybe I’ll be gone before he gets here. 
Then you’ll have to tell him something for me. You 
look like a good woman. You’d keep a promise, if 
you made it.” 

“ I would try,” said Alice, “But you must not tell 


154 


Old Fulkerso?is Clerk, 


me any thing to Mr. Fulkerson’s hurt. He is a good 
man, and I am his friend.” 

“ I don’t know any thing to his hurt,” said the 
woman, fixing her large, sad eyes earnestly on 
Alice’s sweet face. “ Telfair Fulkerson never in- 
jured me. I was a wild, bad girl before he ever 
noticed me. He did a good part by my son. But 
it’s the sight of my boy that hurt me here.” She 
wearily laid a hand on her head. “You don’t know 
what it is, girl, to have your very heart-strings torn 
up by the roots. Dennis stopped coming to see me 
when he got to be a fine New York gentleman. We 
were happy enough when he was a little boy, and 
staid with me at home. I was a good woman from 
the moment they laid my baby in my arms. I 
couldn’t sin, you see, with his innocent soul to be 
looked after. He used to love me some, too. Oh, 
yes, Dennis wasn’t ashamed of his mother before 
they sent him off to school and made a fine New 
York swell of him. I don’t believe he’d begrudge 
me a kiss now, do you, seeing I’m going so soon ? 
But you mustn’t be by, oh no. I’m obliged to you. 
You’ve been better to me than I deserved at your 
hands. But it would mortify Dennis for a lady like 
you to see what sort of a mother he came from. I’ve 
never pestered him since he came from college. I 
thought, if I was a drawback to him. I'd best keep 
out of sight, and so I went back to Ireland, where 
my people came from, but I couldn’t stay. Oh, no, 
I just couldn’t. But it ain’t any harm, now that I’m 
dying, to ask him to come and see the last of me, is 
it ? ” She stopped talking, panting for breath. 

“ Harm ? No, indeed, no harm. My poor wom- 
an, do not be troubled by my presence. I have a 
better right to be here than you think. But now — ” 

An ashen hue overspread the worn face on the 
pillow. A violent shivering seized upon her. In 
alarm, Alice once more summoned the surgeon. 

“It’s the third chill,” he said, twisting the ends of 


The Bitter End. 


155 


his long mustache, and looked placidly down upon 
the pinched features on the bed. She’s going. 
Mortal man couldn’t save her. The end’s not 
more’ll an hour off.” 

“ Then you had best leave me alone with her,” said 
Alice courageously. She still feared the pale, blue 
lips that were given to such indiscreet utterances. 
The surgeon, too familiar with week-day tragedies 
to feel the faintest interest, said, “ All right, ma’am. 
Call, if I’m wanted.” A slight disturbance in the 
doorway caused Alice to turn her eyes in that 
direction. 

Dennis Davenport stood motionless upon the 
threshold through which the surgeon had just dis- 
appeared. His wife confronted him proudly. She 
had discarded her disguise onleavingMr. Fulkerson. 
It was her own erect, handsome self that stood 
haughtily surveying the man in the door-way. 

“ You will come in, and close the door behind 
you, Mr. Duncan, if you please,” with fine scorn in 
voice and eyes. 

He obeyed her mechanically. The iron door 
swung harshly on its hinges. 

“ I thought — ” He fumbled in his side pocket for 
the note. 

'“You hoped,” said Alice with grave severity, 
“ that the dying request came from your deserted 
wife. I sent for you to see your dying mother.” 

With the dignity of an accusing angel she 
motioned him toward the couch, where now, with 
closed eyes and heaving breast, Amy Davenport 
was gasping out the few remaining moments of an 
ill-spent life. 

“ If she recognizes you, soothe her last moments 
with some token of the affection she has starved to 
death lacking ! ” 

These words fell upon Dennis Davenport’s ear as 
in awe-stricken silence he stood with folded arms, 
looking gloomily down upon the dying woman. 


156 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


They touched whatever of nature was left unpol- 
luted in his hardened breast. He bent upon one 
knee, and took the cold, clammy hand in his. The 
v/armth of his touch penetrated the chill of coming 
death. 

“Mother!" 

A seraphic smile hovered about the pallid lips, 
and the filmy eyes sought his beloved face. • 

“ Mother, forgive me." • 

“ My boy 1 Dennis — God — bless — you ! " 

Each word fell slowly and separately from the 
pallid lips. She tried to raise her hand to lay it 
upon his head in benediction. The effort was too 
much. A long convulsive shuddering seized upon 
the frame worn out by excitement and exposure. 
Dennis Davenport was alone with an injured wife 
and a heart-broken mother. 

“ Poor broken heart I Poor hapless woman ! 
You have entered into your rest. May God 
pity and forgive and receive you." With 
infinite pity in her voice, Alice murmured these 
words, as she softly pressed her fingers on the lids 
of the staring eyes of the dead. But when she 
turned to face the criminal kneeling there in abject 
intimidation, the angel of pity was turned into the 
stern accuser. 

“There lies another of your victims; and your 
last. You wonder how I could summon you by 
your assumed name. I am Mr. Fulkerson’s nurse. 
He does not know me as your wife. That great 
shame I hide within my own breast. I know, also, 
of your guilty passion for pure Georgina Markam. 
You are too utterly loathsome to me for the com- 
mon feeling of jealousy to enter into my sensations 
at such a discovery. It is my intention, so soon as 
I have performed the duty that called me here, to 
expose you to Miss Markam. I give you your 
choice. Either you leave New York immediately, 
and write your own confession, or, else, you stay at 


The Bitter End, 


157 


the peril of being arrested for the crimes you have 
already committed. I make no doubt as to what 
your decision will be. Cowardice has always been 
your prime counselor ; no doubt it will be again.” 

The man absolutely shrank in physical stature, 
as she stood there in her outraged wife-hood, and 
reproached him. 

“ My God, Alice, how. you must hate me to talk 
and look as you do,” he said, weakly resentful under 
the lash that was scourging him. 

“ Hate you ? No ! I am conscious of nothing but 
the loathing excited always by contact with a rep- 
tile. Your decision.” 

He ground his heel in the cement floor of the 
cell. He chewed the ends of his mustache sav- 
agely. He felt murderously inclined toward that 
slender, fearless creature, whose body he could have 
crushed with one brutal hand, whose soul was so 
invincible, whose cause was so just. How he wished 
she were lying there cold, and stilled forever, by the 
side of the mother whose heart he had broken. 

“ Will you consent to a divorce ? ” he asked, 
raising his sullen, angry eyes to her defiant face. 

“A divorce? No! Never!” 

“ You care nothing for me ! ” 

No. Absolutely nothing ! Nevertheless, by no 
act of mine shall you ever have it in your power to 
ruin another woman’s life. You have made wreck 
of two already. You shall not make a third wreck 
until death do us part ’ ! ” A slight, bitter laugh 
fell from her curling lips. 

The man before her ground his teeth in 
impotent rage. He drew his watch from his 
pocket. Four o’clock. In one more hour Georgina 
would be going to the brown-stone church to meet 
him. He knew about the fire, but such an engage- 
ment held good if the heavens rained fire and hell 
vomited it. He said to himself, gnashing his teeth, 
that he would not give her up. He was no worse 


158 


Old Fulkerson's Clerh 


now than when he had won her first love-lit glance. 
He could yet secure her, and make good his escape, 
if he could but keep this avenging wife from off his 
trail. A wild, mad idea seized upon him. She 
should not leave the cell until his object was accom- 
plished. The key was on the outer side. She might 
call, but who would hear ? Slowly he paced the 
narrow limits of the cell with down-dropped head, 
and hands clasped meditatively behind his back. 
Gradually he neared the door. A leap, a closed 
door, a key turned in the lock, and Alice Gregory 
was imprisoned with a corpse. 


CHAPTER XXL 

FOILED. 

As Dennis Davenport strode down the dark corrid- 
ors of the prison, with much clatter of hurrying heel- 
taps on the resounding brick-floor, his soul was full 
of one guilty purpose, to the exclusion of every 
other sensation. Remorse for the miserable death 
of the mother whose life he had bereft of all joy 
was as fleeting as the one tortured moment when 
he stood over her, watching her last gasping mo- 
ments ! She was to him now what she had been 
through all his sin-stained maturity — nothing. • Con- 
sideration for the threats of his wife, whose dauntless 
opposition and manifest detestation only served to 
stir into activity all that was most evil in an essen- 
tially evil nature, held no place in his soul. Fear of 
consequences? Every thing was swallowed up in one 
wicked desire, one madly reckless determination. 

In the outer corridor he met the surgeon placidly 


Foiled. 


159 

smoking his cigar. He stopped in front of him and 
said calmly : — 

The poor woman in yonder has but a little 
while longer to live. Her friend ’requests that no 
one shall disturb them for two hours. I turned the 
key to prevent intrusion. Here it is. You will 
look in later on, will you not? There is nothing but 
waiting, and her friend can better do that than a 
busy man like myself. Here is , money to secure 
decent interment. I leave the matter in your 
hands.” 

“ All right. She lasts pretty well, though.” 

The surgeon’s answer was addressed to space. 
The man who had put the key and a roll of bills in 
his hand was already out of sight. 

Once Georgina is mine,” Dennis Davenport 
muttered between his clinched teeth, “ I will put so 
many leagues between me and danger that the devil 
himself can’t find me.” 

What of the deceit he was practicing upon her 1 
Ah, she would never know. And he would make 
her life one long glad holiday. A dangerous game? 
Of course it was ! But she was worth risking life 
everlasting for. He twisted his long mustache 
savagely. He had rendered Alice harmless for 
more than two hours. His purpose would be accom- 
plished before she was liberated. In the mean- 
time — 

Ay, in the meantime ! 

Dr. Crocker’s arm had been set immediately after 
reaching the hospital, then they wanted to adminis- 
ter an anaesthetic. 

Before Tallow you to put me to sleep,” he said, 
“ bring me a detective. I wish to put him to work 
immediately.” 

Nothing more natural than that he should wish 
to discover the incendiary or incendiaries of his 
uncle’s home. The news of poor Amy’s arrest had 
not penetrated to the quiet hospital. 


i6o Old Fulkersons Clerk. 

Alone with the detective Ralph said : — 

“I wish one Mr. David Duncan shadowed all day. 
His movements to be reported to me every hour by 
telephone. Spare no expense. He is one of a 
party of Canada strangers staying at the Wind- 
sor.” 

The detective went away, and the doctor came 
back. To him Ralph said in a tone which brooked 
no refusal : — 

“If you will promise me to arouse me when the 
bell of the telephone strikes, I will take your stuff. 
Otherwise I will throw it out of the window.” The 
doctor promised abjectly, and performed faith- 
fully. 

“ Man quietly resting in room at hotel,” came 
sepulchrally through the telephone. 

Ralph sighed with relief, swallowed another 
spoonful of chloral, and dropped into another doze 
on the same condition that he was to be aroused at 
the first telephone signal. 

“ Man quietly resting in room at hotel.” Once 
more an awakening, signs of satisfaction and return 
to repose. 

“ Summoned by messenger. Followed messenger 
to Twenty-third Street police-station. There now 
closeted with two women.” 

Ralph, though mystified, was in no way disturbed 
by this report. There could not possibly be any 
concern of his in this visit to the station. “No 
doubt, to relieve some of his wretched companions,” 
he muttered disgustedly. 

Twice more the report came through the tele- 
phone : — 

“No change of situation;” then, “Returned to 
hotel ; ” next, “ Man repaired to up-town church, 
Church of Messiah, waiting there apparently for 
some one.” 

This last report caused Dr. Crocker to summon 
an attendant in excited haste. 


Foiled, 


i6i 

Have a carriage for me immediately,” he said 
peremptorily. 

His physician’s protesting eyes appeared over the 
man’s shoulder. “ But, my dear Crocker — ” 

“ I shall suffer some by the jolting, no doubt,” 
said Ralph resolutely, “ but others will suffer more 
by my inaction. Consider me your charge, doctor, 
but one who reserves the privilege of free 
agency.” 

“ We are not in the habit of admitting patients 
on so independent a footing. But I suppose you un- 
derstand the exigencies of your case as well as I do.” 

“And better, too,” said Ralph, moving slowly 
down the corridor to be ready for the carriage. “ I 
promise to be more tractable after this.” The car- 
riage was waiting for him. 

“To the Church of the Messiah!” he gave the 
order, and then sat bolt upright in the cushions to 
avoid as much of the inevitable jarring as possible. 
When the church was reached, another carriage was 
at the curb. From the shelter of the gate-posts, 
the detective stepped forward and nodding toward 
it, said : — 

“ Handsome young woman just stepped out of it. 
Your man met her at the church door. Parson’s 
just gone in through side door.” 

With pain and difficulty, assisted by the driver 
and detective, Ralph descended from the cab, walked 
across the churchyard, and entered the obscurely 
lighted building. The murmur of a clergyman’s 
monotonous voice, as in reading, reached his ears. 
It was evident that a very quiet wedding was on the 
tapis. He approached closely enough, by one of 
the side-aisles, to satisfy himself that he was not 
mistaken in the parties. 

It was Georgina Markam, standing there, pale but 
resolute, and by her side stood Lord Wingate’s 
handsome friend, the man whom Alice Gregory 
declared to be her own husband. 


Old Fulkersons Clerk. 


162 

Raising his hand to arrest attention, Ralph thun- 
dered the one word — “ Stop ! ” 

Three pairs of startled eyes were turned upon him. 

“ I forbid this ceremony to proceed any further,” 
he said, emerging from the gloomy shadows of the 
galleries, and stationing himself by Georgina’s side. 

She simply extended her hand to Dennis for sup- 
port and in token of trust. 

“ Do you know this man ? ” the clergyman asked, 
addressing himself to her. 

“ I know him,” she said, quite deliberately, “ as a 
member of my sister’s household. My marriage is 
not in accordance with the wishes of my family. I 
am of age. I have made my own choice. Proceed.” 

“ Proceed ! ” 

Dennis Davenport repeated the word, but his 
voice was not so haughtily assured as hers was. 

“You will not proceed, at least, not until I have 
had a word in private with this gentleman. Come 
with me, sir.” 

The steady command in Ralph’s eye was not to 
be disobeyed. Dennis turned from his trembling 
dupe’s side, and followed Dr. Crocker to a side win- 
dow. Georgina sank indignant and terrified into the 
nearest pew. The minister coughed, and shifted 
nervously from one foot to the other. 

When he had reached an open window, through 
which the outer sunshine sent a full, broad beam of 
light, Ralph leaned against a pillar for support. The 
man who had been about to commit the crime of 
bigamy faced him with sullen mien and coward eyes. 

“ Dennis Davenport, defaulter and would-be big- 
amist, I give you two minutes to leave this church, 
half an hour to leave New York. The alternative — 
the Tombs ! ” 

It had been an experiment. He never made a 
more successful one. He was alone in another sec- 
ond. The hardest part of his task lay yet before 
him. He performed his graceless errand tenderly. 


Foiled. 


163 


“ Dear child,” he said, “you have had a miracu- 
lous escape. Come home with me. Your secret is 
mine alone. Rest assured, the folly of this hour 
will never transpire through me.” 

Georgina stood before him with crest erect and 
flashing eyes : “ I prefer Mr. Duncan’s escort.” 

“ That you can not have. Do not compel me to 
tell you here, in the presence of a third person, how 
basely you have been deceived. Thank God, I was 
in time to prevent your folly becoming your crime.” 

“ Crime ! ” she came close up to him, and almost 
hissed the words into his ear. “ Say the worst here. 
I can bear it. What crime ? ” 

“ Bigamy ! ” 

The word reached no ear but hers, but it fell with 
stunning force. She lifted her large, dry eyes im- 
ploringly to the earnest face above her. She held 
out her trembling hands. Her lips were parted as 
if in terror. She was a beautiful picture of terror 
and affright. 

Ralph drew her, sobbing and quivering, to his 
side. Together they left the church, where she had 
come so near making wreck of her innocent purity 
for life. He put her into the carriage, and gave the 
order she was powerless to give, then turned and 
entered his own cab. 

“ Have I condoned crime in allowing him to es- 
cape ? ” was the question Ralph put to his own con- 
science as he drove slowly in the direction of the 
hospital. 

But when in startling array he summed uf) the 
woe and disgrace and public scandal and disgusting 
revelations that any other course would have en- 
tailed on Alice, Georgina, his uncle, all of them, he 
thought he had acted for the best. 


164 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

AND THE DAYS GO GLIDING BY. 

“ May I go with you, sir ? 

The request came from the detective, who leaned 
through the cab door to make it. 

“ Yes, jump in. I have much to ask you about.” 

Then as the man stationed himself on the front 
seat, and the horrible agony of jolting over the 
cobble-stones began once more : — 

“ Has any thing been discovered about the fire ? ” 

Upon which for answer the detective told him 
what we know already. 

“ Fool, fool ; to neglect her earnest warning ! ” he 
muttered to himself. “ Order the cab to the police 
station where you say they took her,” he said. “ I 
want to examine her myself ! This mystery must 
be solved.” 

But he found only a still, cold form, a dead face 
bearing the marks of life’s rude buffeting, a pair of 
thin hands folded restfully over the storm-beaten 
heart, only waiting the hurried hammering together 
of a few pine planks and a jolting ride in the dead- 
cart to the potter’s field. 

“ Nothing to pay, sir,” said the official, waving 
Dr. Crocker’s purse back into his pocket. “ A lady, 
a real one she was, too, came early this morning, was 
here when the poor woman died, and staid until 
there was nothing left for her to do. She left plenty 
of money for the thing to be done decently.” 

“God bless her!” Ralph murmured to himself. 
“ She is always to the fore, when mercy and charity 
are in demand.” Then to the man, “You have no 
idea who this poor woman is, then ? ” 

“ None, none whatever, sir. All I know is that 
she is the one who burned the Fulkersons out last 


And the Days go Gliding By. 165 

night. She was crazy as a loon. She’s better off as 
she is, sir.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Ralph, turning away. And that 
was all he ever learned of Amy Davenport’s life and 
death. 

To return to Mr. Fulkerson, and give an account 
of Amy Davenport’s last moments ; to repeat her 
own unalterable determination to resign her position 
as his nurse ; to leave the house before there was 
any possibility of Ralph Crocker’s return from the 
hospital ; to say to Gecrgie Markam some things 
that must be said for the child’s own sake ; and then 
to go back to Mopsy, and take up the old life : this 
was the programme Alice mapped out for herself as 
she turned away from the prison gloom and emerged 
into the gloom of night. 

After all, it would be easier to write it all. So 
she turned her tired feet toward Mrs. Grimm’s 
boarding-house. She was glad that she was not to 
find Mopsy in the little dingy bedroom. Nothing 
short of absolute solitude would strengthen her for 
the task that must be performed that night. She 
sat late into the morning, writing three letters ; one 
to Mr. Fulkerson, one to Ralph, one to Georgina. 

Mr. Fulkerson read his in somber silence. He 
thanked her in his heart for what she had done, but 
he rebelled fiercely at what she intended to do. He 
would not give her up. She should see ! 

Ralph read his in the quiet of his hospital-chamber, 
and smiled. He meant, this masterful, tender- 
hearted Ralph, to look Mistress Alice up presently, 
and to assume a sort of guardianship over her life 
and happiness. There was much he could do for 
her, would and must do for her, in fact, without ever 
again infringing. Yes, infringing was the word he 
used to himself, and he had yet to obliterate from 
her pure heart and proud soul the memory of his 
boldness. 

Georgina did not read hers at all. It lay unnoticed 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk. 


i66 

on her dressing-table for many a long day and night, 
while the girl wrestled with the angel of death for 
victory. 

Ralph was entirely too important a factor in the 
Fulkerson household to be allowed to remain at 
the hospital. He came back to take charge of 
Georgina’s case. 

Once Georgina was cured of the physical pains and 
penalties that besieged her strong young frame, she 
set about the task of obliterating from heart and 
memory the unworthy image that she had foolishly 
elevated to a rank among the gods. 

And gradually the days adjusted themselves after 
a fashion of their own. She now plunged eagerly 
into the gayeties Edith had once to plead for. Mrs. 
Fulkerson’s ambition was satisfied: Miss Markam 
was the sensation of the hour. 

When the time came that Ralph felt he could 
safely seek Alice Gregory’s presence, he sought her 
at Mrs. Grimm’s. 

‘‘The Gregory sisters had given up their room. 
But where they had gone, or how they could be found, 
was more than Mrs. Grimm could say.” 

Chagrined, disappointed, and saddened. Dr. 
Crocker turned away from the shabby door through 
which Alice had escaped him into sudden oblivion, 
just at the moment he most wanted to be her friend. 

In the little cottage won back by the hoardings of 
the two years, Mopsy and Alice, surrounded by their 
own familiar belongings, were as happy as two exiled 
queens suddenly restored to their thrones. At least, 
Mopsy was so radiant in her happiness that Alice 
benefited by its reflex. 

A “dear old lady and gentleman, boarders” — 
furnished them protection and added to the revenue. 

Leading a quiet and monotonous life away up in 
their part of the city, Alice often read the names of 
Ralph Crocker and Miss Markam coupled together 
in society items touching rout, ball and drama. 


Conclusion. 


167 

“ It is just as it should be ! ” she would say valor- 
ously, feeling all the while, poor heart, that nothing 
in the world was just as it should be. 

How should she know that the memory of Mis- 
tress Alice’s familiar form, deft fingers, low, sweet 
voice and gentle goodness were held in reverential 
memory by every member of the family she had 
once formed part of? How should she know that 
always going with him, let him be immersed in the 
cares of his profession, or escorting his uncle’s hand- 
some wife and lovely sister from one scene of Geor- 
gie’s triumphs to another, the image of Alice Greg- 
ory, straight, haughty, beautiful, as she hurled 
defiance at him when he penetrated her harmless 
masquerade, went with him and abode with him 
always — now soothing him with a tender vision of 
her worth and beauty ; now torturing him with the 
fact of her total disappearance from the plane of his 
existence ? 

Perhaps that, too, was as it should be ! Of what 
avail the bitter-sweet knowledge, when stretching 
aridly before her was her life — marred, shackled, 
burdened with its sense of shameful bondage to a 
man whom it was a crime to wish dead, whom it was 
a torture to know living ! 


CHAPTER XXHI. 

CONCLUSION. 


Three years have been deducted from the lives of 
all those with whom this story has to do — three years 
fraught with the usual amount of good and bad for- 
tune for struggling, hoping, despairing humanity. 


1 68 Old Fulkersons Clerk, 

Mr. Fulkerson, grown used now to the prisoner’s life 
his affliction doomed him to, was a milder and more 
rational paralytic than he had been in the early days 
of Mistress Alice’s ministration. Mrs. Fulkerson 
was pretty much the same languid, handsome woman 
of the world, neither more nor less in earnest about 
life. Georgina, stronger, quieter and better for the 
cruelly sharp experience that had come to her with 
her first loving, had gone back to brighten the days 
for her father, who found, to his glad amazement, 
that he once more reigned supreme in his darling’s 
heart. Ralph Crocker was the idol of his clientele 
and the despair of marriageable spinsters. To all 
appearances he had not one thought or desire apart 
from the conscientious execution of his professional 
duties. 

Mopsy and Alice by various small maneuvrings 
managed to exist without feeling the spur of neces- 
sity too sharply. Alice was still given to reading 
the wants column in the Herald^ as much from force 
of habit, perhaps, as any thing else. And this is 
what the habit brought her into contact with one 
day, when she was moodily wondering if life was to 
go on forever with the same hueless tints: — 

“Wanted — Information of the whereabouts of 
Mrs. Alice Gregory. By calling on Messrs. Norton 
& Knowles, No. 955 Bleecker Street, she will hear 
of something to her advantage.” 

They had just finished breakfast, she, Mopsy, and 
their lodgers, when this notice fell under her eye. 
She silently laid the paper before her sister. 

“ What can it mean ?” asked Mopsy, more startled 
than pleased. 

“ I don’t know. But it says, ‘To her advantage.’ 
I shall go at once.” 

An hour later she was sitting in the lawyer’s office, 
waiting in nervous solitude for something — she did 
not know what — to happen. Her reception by the 
lawyer had been mystifying. The member of the 


Conclusion. 


169 


firm calling himself Norton had met her with marked 
politeness and cordiality, and then, asking her to 
excuse him for a moment, had whisked out of sight 
and left her alone. Not for long, however: — 

“At last, Mistress Alice, I have found you again ! " 

The voice was Ralph Crocker’s and it was laden 
with emotion, as he approached her with extended 
hands. 

Her reception of him chilled and startled him : — 

“Was it just or kind to lay a trap for me. Dr. 
Crocker? Was it worthy of you ? ” 

“ Is it just or kind to accuse me of such a thing? 
Is it worthy of you ? he asked with gentle mockery, 
as he seated himself in the chair vacated by the 
lawyer. Then more seriously : — 

“ I have news for you. Mistress Alice, that I could 
not impart without a personal interview. You had 
hidden yourself so completely from your friends, 
that to advertise for you was the only recourse left. 
What I have to tell you I did not care to communi- 
cate through a third party, for I do not desire that 
any one but my uncle and myself shall ever know 
that you were once Dennis Davenport’s wife.” 

“Were? Once?” 

Alice’s large eyes were fastened on him in startled 
inquiry. 

“Were once! Dennis Davfenport is dead, has 
been, indeed, for some months.” 

“ Go on, please.” 

There was no pretense of a sorrow she did not 
feel. There was a sense of liberation, a loosing of 
her shackles, a lifting of a heavy yoke, a freedom 
from bondage. Her hands trembled, as they lay 
clasped upon her lap. Her lips and cheeks were 
bloodless. 

“Only a few days ago the news reached us. It 
seems that after leaving New York, foiled of his 
wicked designs on Miss Markam, this man returned 
to Toronto, and led a most reckless life of mad dis- 


Old Fulkerson's Clerk, 


170 

sipation. Exposure following closely upon a carouse 
produced pneumonia, of which he died.” 

“ May God have mercy on his soul ! ” said Alice 
gravely. 

And Ralph said — “Amen.” 

“ When he found that there was no hope remain- 
ing, he caused to be written to my uncle a repentant 
letter, in which he makes restitution of all his stolen 
property not gotten rid of. In that letter he 
says : 

“ My wife was a greater sufferer by my defalcation 
than you were. She relinquished all her property to 
spare me detection and disgrace, but both came. 
If your sense of justice should incline you to do any 
thing for her, you will have no difficulty in identi- 
fying her. She committed the quixotic folly of serv- 
ing you as nurse. My wife’s name was Alice 
Gregory.” 

“ Thus tardily comes some slight recognition of 
all I have suffered at his hands,” said Alice, after a 
silent pause. 

“ Thus tardily,” Ralph repeated. Then — “ You can 
imagine. Mistress Alice, the surprise that letter 
occasioned my uncle. He has done but little since 
receiving it but marvel at your wonderful self- 
control, and long for you that he may make amends 
for all you have sacfificed.” 

“ That he can never do,” said Alice sadly. “ Could 
restitution of the few thousand dollars I sacrificed 
to lessen his loss compensate for the loss of all these 
precious years spent in loneligess and poverty, shut 
out from all that makes life worth living?” 

“But you will come back to the old man? He 
longs for you so, Mistress Alice. And — Oh ! my 
dear one, if he can not compensate for the bitter- 
ness of your past, can not — can not — ’ 

“ Hush ! Not yet ! Oh ! not now.” 

She rose from her chair and went to him. For a 
fleeting second her hand rested in his fervent clasp. 


Conclusion. 


171 

He read in her eyes what she would not allow her 
lips to confess. 

“ Tell your uncle for me/* she said, with a soft 
blush mantling from neck to brow, “that I thank 
him for the haste he has made to right my wrongs. 
Tell him I will come back, if he wants me, to be to 
him as a daughter. I learned to love him. He 
was very good and patient with me.” 

“ Have you no words for any one but him?’* 

“ None ! No one else needs them.** 

“ What have you for me, Alice ? Oh ! my love, 
for me ? ’* 

“ A little time of waiting, a lifetime of loving 
companionship,” she said simply and solemnly, and 
passed out of his presence. 


THE END. 













AS IT WAS WRITTEN. 


A Jewish Musician’s Story. 

By Sidney Luska. 


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